


Sins Of The Fathers

by wewerewriters



Category: GOT7, Jackson Wang - Fandom
Genre: Drama, F/M, Heavy Angst, Mystery, Organized Crime, Romance, Thriller
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2018-10-16 10:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 71,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10569108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wewerewriters/pseuds/wewerewriters
Summary: South Korea.2016.Bora is an art student who expected her 21st birthday to be as uneventful and bland as always.She didn't quite expect, however, to become public enemy number 1 on South Korea's hit-list.That is until the intriguing Jackson Wang comes into play on the brink of her 21st birthday, shattering everything she ever believed in.Between haunting revelations, heated car chases, and kidnappings, she finds herself thrown into a world of corruption and crime she struggles to survive in and where one question is left hanging: to ride or die.What is the Ghost Unit?What is the Division?But most importantly, who really is her father?«Mark, Jackson and Bora have done nothing wrong, yet they've inherited the blood on their hands.»In which, a girl finds herself in the middle of blood-curdling Korean politics





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! This is my first time on AO3 as a writer. I don't feel like this is the type of stories the GOT7 fandom usually enjoys, original characters, action and all but I'm really passionate about this story and its potential, I enjoy writing it, so why not share it? Have fun reading and don't hesitate dropping some comments for me to read if you feel like it!

September, 22 of 2008

A lot can happen in the span of a moment. Life routine unfolds. People laugh. People cry. People marry. People are born. People die. Some people lose everything in a heartbeat.

Not a lot of people are on the road on dark chilly nights in the countryside roads of Busan.

A storm struck the Busan region and a single car was making its way through the downpour. The windshield wipers were furiously washing the rain away from the driver's view and the headlights trying to make out the road ahead – in vain.

It didn't help the woman seated in the front seat that her thirteen year old daughter was hollering with all her might from the backseat.

"Mommy, please." She cried in an attempt to reason her mother. "Why are you being like this? Where are we going?"

She willingly had left her home with her mother when the latter had urged her to come with her but soon had realized something was off when she saw her mom had packed both of their stuff in a rush. The suitcases were sitting next to her on the backseat.

The thirty-something woman shut her eyes out of frustration before answering. "We're going to go to Seoul. I'll meet someone there and then you and I are going to leave Korea."

That only worsened the little girl's cries. "But I don't want to leave Korea; I want to stay here with you and Daddy!"

The woman's hands gripped the steering wheel, whitening her knuckles. She locked her gaze with her daughter's in the rearview mirror. "Your father is a bad person; do you understand me, Bora? He is a dangerous man; we can't stay with him anymore."

That made no sense whatsoever in Bora's mind. "No, he's my dad. He loves us. Let's go back, please!"

"We must never go back. Ever." She let out in a shaky breath. "Stop crying, sweetheart. Mommy knows what she's doing." There was a desperate edge to her tone. She seemed to be trying to convince herself more than her daughter.

"What are we going to do in Seoul?" Bora let out through her tears.

Her mother forced a smile in an attempt to soothe her daughter. "We're going to build a new life together. I'll protect you."

"Protect me from what? Stop the car!" The girl was screaming now as she fumbled to unfasten her seatbelt. The woman turned around and she was screaming too now, tears rolling down her cheeks.

She looks crazed, was the last thought that passed Bora's mind before two bright headlights coming from the opposite direction blinded her vision and a cry echoed, hers or her mother's, she couldn't recall. What she remembered was two vehicles clashing one another, her seatbelt digging in her shoulder, glass shattering, her head spinning around as the car rolled over multiple times before ending its way in a ditch. She thought she heard footsteps but she wasn't sure because she was lured into darkness.

A lot can happen in the span of a moment. Life routine unfolds. People laugh. People cry. People marry. People are born. People die. Some people lose everything in a heartbeat.


	2. Bygones

She was trapped.

  
And God knew how much she loathed being trapped - whether literally or metaphorically.

  
It was like that one time in sixth grade when she had played hide-and-seek with her neighbor's daughter and hidden under the kitchen's sink. Her stupid 11 year-old self had inadvertently locked herself up in a cupboard which could only be opened from the outside. This made sense in hindsight. What use would detergents and bleach get from a doorknob, right? When she realized she was trapped, she threw a fit, kicking, crying, and hyperventilating before fainting for a few seconds prior to her mother coming to her rescue.

  
Right now, she was trapped again. And quite literally, at that. She was in a cage. It was a beautiful cage, she had to admit. High enough to stand but not large enough to move around freely. Shiny rough diamonds were embedded on the golden bars, catching and reflecting the sunlight passing through the high glass-ceiling of the room.

Her surroundings appeared little by little as she took them in. She was in a court hall and her cage was planted right in the middle of it. The room seemed abandoned. There were stacks of papers messily spread on a desk and bleachers surrounded the gilded cage.

As she was analyzing the room, footsteps echoed outside the room and a crowd of people started flowing in through the main gates. The audience took place in the bleachers before a man dressed in a judge attire cleared his throat. He took the hardwood gavel resting on the desk before slamming it down.

Once. Twice. Thrice. She felt like every strike was being inflicted directly onto her skull, drilling into it. She wanted to bring her hands to her ears, to block the sound off but her hands were numb. Like she had slept on them and stopped her blood flow. If she was thinking straight, she would have remembered that one history class where her teacher briefly mentioned that the use of gavels during trials and such were a typical US occurrence. And this was South Korea.

But she wasn't thinking straight. Her body was numb. Her mind was numb. Her inability to move was a giveaway that she was, in fact, dreaming. She couldn't move, couldn't talk. She could only watch whatever torture her mind had decided to put her through, internally screaming to get out of that messed up hell.

The man spoke up. "Let's resume." He paused. His eyes went through the stack of papers piled on the desk and she realized they were in the middle of a trial.

"Lee Bo Ra."

Her trial.

He flipped a page. "Born June the 25th of 1995 in Busan, South Korea." More page flipping. "On September the 22nd of 2008, 8 years ago, she and her mother Lee Ji Hye were driving away from Busan when Lee Bo Ra, aged 13, caused the accident that killed Mrs. Lee on the spot."

Her heart would burst out of her chest and spill its contents on the ground any moment now.

The judge leveled his gaze at her, a stretch of silence kept the audience on the tip of their toes to hear the looming verdict. She wanted to close her eyes, to set her eyes on anything but the man before her.

"Based on the evidence presented to the court beforehand, I thereby condemn Lee Bo Ra, to the capital punishment for the homicide of Mrs. Lee Ji Hye on September the 22nd of 2008. She thus becomes South Korea's sixty-second person on death row."

More gavel striking. Benches screeched, people applauded, someone threw a shoe at her cage like some animal and another laughed out loud.

But nobody cared that the cage's bars were narrowing down on her. That the bars were pushing against her sides, poking at her, making fun of her. Her hands were reaching for something, anything, and anyone to hold on to. But there was no one. The diamonds were jabbing at her skin. She couldn't breathe. Crack! Her bones were being crushed by the ever-shrinking cage. The bars pressed on her limbs, pressed on her heart and she was soon out of breath. Her hands fell limp before an abyss of black swallowed her whole.

* * *

Bora woke up from her slumber with a jerk, hitting her head on the shelf set low above her worktable. She hissed as her hands found their way to her skull, rubbing it in circles to soothe the pain. She stood up and her right foot went flying to the shelf hitting it in one angry kick. A clutter of palettes, paintbrushes and empty cans of paints spilled on the concrete floor of her cabin.

Her father had built an outbuilding in their backyard for Bora to have a place to paint, her personal art studio. It was a comfy shelter. The cabin was dimly lit by a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling as well as several windows to use and abuse of the natural light as much as possible. Right now, it was the middle of the night and it was dark outside.

She instantly regretted her outburst, as she stared at the mess. One hand went to her forehead and the other to her hip as she stood still. Her head hurt and she had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her she just had a nightmare – though she couldn't recall anything about it.

Looking around, her eyes fell on the blank canvas standing on her wooden easel. She sighed. She was in her final year of arts studies and had to produce the center piece of the senior exhibition based on the theme 'Inner Demons' and which was to take place the following day.

Glancing at her wristwatch, her heartbeat accelerated when she realized it was already tomorrow, and she had to hand over her work in a few hours to be put up in the gallery.

She stared at the desk where she had fallen asleep brainstorming ideas that could impress Mrs. Cha, her frigid painting professor. Anything she had come up with felt superficial and shallow – something Mrs. Cha wouldn't hesitate stating in her usual blunt tone.

She tried very hard but her brain just wouldn't come up with new stuff. Inner demons. That left endless possibilities ahead of her. She sat on the stool in front of her canvas and caressed the blank space. Her fingertips ran along the fabric of the canvas, tasting it, taming it. Not really sure what she was doing, she hesitantly picked up a paintbrush before steeping the tip in jet black paint.

Painting was always a thrilling experience. She absolutely loved it. She loved how her hands took control of her body, how her wrist flicked in smooth motions, expertly tracing the outlines of her work before filling in her piece. It was her secret therapy, her personal moment of respite. Painting was the only thing she looked forward to. She slept very little, afraid of what lingered beyond the limits of her conscience.

So, when a creative block hit her a month ago, all hell broke loose. She had been a grumpy mess for the past few weeks, constantly on the verge of tears. She had already experienced painter's block before but this was her longest one ever. She thought she had lost inspiration for good.

The one thing she was supposed to be good at, she wasn't and it tore her apart in the inside. She felt like she had swallowed a tiny creature which had ripped her insides into shreds before lighting them on fire and dancing around it.

And now, as she pressed the end of her paintbrush onto the canvas, she felt like she was extinguishing that fire. She started with a general outline, then adding in details, colors. She mused around with different kinds of paints, different shades, and different techniques.

She stayed up all night polishing her work. At around 6am she stood back to take an overall look of the canvas. Her painting depicted a cage. A beautiful golden cage. A gorgeous gilded cage incrusted in rough diamonds.

She had put a lot of effort on the diamonds, making them capture and reflect the light. She wanted them to look real. Inside the cage sat the jet black silhouette of a girl. She was curled up on herself, trying to fit all her limbs inside of the too-tiny cage. The view was unsettling, she didn't know how she came up with something so different from her usual style but she did and she was oddly satisfied with herself. She admired her piece a few more minutes before making her way out of the cabin, dodging the jumble of painting tools still lying on the floor.

After a quick shower, she was sipping a cup of well-seasoned black coffee on her kitchen's counter when her phone chimed. She smiled when she read the sender's ID. Woo Bin. Her best friend.

Her smile dropped when she read his text and immediately called him.

"What do you mean you can't make it?" She hissed as soon as he picked up.

"I mean I can't make it." He answered plainly. "Something came up. I'm sorry."

"But you promised you'd come. There won't be another senior exhibition in my life." She whined.

"I'll make it up to you. I just can't tonight. I'll explain everything later. Okay?"

She pouted even though he couldn't see her. "All right."

He hung up and she was left with a ringtone and a bitter taste on her tongue. She knew Woo Bin would have a good reason to skip on her senior exhibition. He always had been supportive of her. He wouldn't miss it for the world and thus had to have a legitimate reason for not being able to make it. But she still couldn't help feeling disappointed. He never let her down and thinking back, he had always been there for her important moments of life.

She was 13 when she met him. She had just moved to Seoul with her father after the tragic death of her mother. Woo Bin was 16 and had found her under the school's bleachers, weeks after her mother's death.

She was huddled up on herself and looked so tiny, so fragile, he had taken it upon himself to put a smile back on her face. As expected, she wasn't easy to deal with. She couldn't bring herself to befriend new people as if she had just casually moved into town with her family. She naturally missed her mother. She was in a period of mourning and didn't feel like socializing.

So she pushed him back like she did everyone. But he came back every time. She never understood why he did but they were here now. They both had come a long way.

It was ironic how the roles had switched now. She was the one longing for his presence and he – well, he wasn't exactly pushing her back. Senior exhibition was the most anticipated event of the spring semester at school. It was the last milestone before graduation. The fact that her spurt of inspiration gave her something to hand over eased the knot in her stomach but not enough to let go of Woo Bin's soothing presence. He graduated 3 years ago; majoring in computer science and was now working for a game developer company. Maybe his boss had dropped last minute work on him.

As she was wondering if she should call him back to investigate more on his reasons, the sound of footsteps hurtling down the stairs echoed around the house and her dad appeared on the kitchen's threshold. He was focused on something on his phone and absentmindedly greeted her.

"Senior exhibition is tonight." She casually reminded him, studying his face from the corner of her eye.

Were it anyone else, they might not have noticed the way Lee Hyun Suk's brows creased as he took the information in, the way his movements paused and his facial expression froze for a millisecond. Bora might have not noticed it herself had she not gotten used to that look again and again over the years.

"You forgot." She simply stated. It was not a question. His look turned apologetic. She knew that look all too well. It was the look he'd give her when he came in late to get her from school and she had to wait on the sidewalk like some abandoned puppy.

"I'll make it, I promise. Is it at the Seoul Museum Of Art? I can go right after I'm off work. It's a few blocks away." He rambled.

It took a lot of self-control for Bora not to snap, right then and there.

She stood up from her stool with a jerk and bore straight into his eyes, her gaze hard as stone. "I'm not asking you to come, Dad. If I wanted people to come for the sake of showing up, I would have gone up to the entire neighborhood handing out invitations. I'm asking you to remember. Remember that I exist, remember that I'm your daughter. Ever since Mom died you've become a shell of what you used to be. It's like she took a part of your soul with her. Your body's here but your mind isn't."

Before he could try to reach for her, she drew back and made it to leave the room but stopped on the threshold.

"And FYI... It's the Seoul Arts Center." She spat.


	3. Golden Cage

When Bora got back to her painting studio after storming out of the kitchen, she let out a loud sob before contemplating crying the day away. Holding her head in her hands she let out a deep breath.

Get a grip of yourself, she scolded herself.

More urgent problems awaited, she'd cry later.

Checking her phone, she had 6 missed calls from Yoona. She groaned. Shit. Yoona was the leader of the whole 2016 Senior Exhibition. All the class had agreed on a theme at the beginning of the school year, Inner Demons, and had had to work together to produce paintings, drawings, sculptures and any form of art to be displayed in the exhibition hall of the Seoul Arts Center.

The school provided the venue but it was up to the students to oversee the smooth running of the exhibition. Yoona was the appointed leader of the class and thus had to make sure everyone handed over their work on time to be carried to the venue. She had been pestering Bora the past week for a day-to-day update on her work. Bora's painting being the center piece of the exhibition, needless to say Yoona had been on edge all week. The girl was a control freak.

Cautiously, she took the canvas down from its easel. As she did so, the weight in her chest lightened. She was more than relieved to put these past few weeks behind her. Don't get her wrong. She loved painting but she hated deadlines. She'd heard of people liking the rush of adrenaline coming along with looming deadlines. These people were just sadistic in her opinion.

Easing the painting in the backseat of her car, she drove through the city to the South Korea School of Fine Arts, a 15 minutes ride from her house. As soon as she stepped foot in the building, Yoona appeared before her in a storm.

"What the hell took you so long?" She immediately fired. Before Bora could respond, she cut her off. "Anyway, the truck driver is getting ready to leave for the Arts Center with all the equipment and everyone's work." She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head at something behind Bora, hinting at her to take a look. Turning around, she saw the truck driver getting inside the vehicle - and starting the engine. Horrified, Bora realized he wasn't getting ready to leave, just downright leaving. She wouldn't catch him up in time. He was on the other side of the parking lot. Bora faced Yoona with a tight-lipped smile. She was trying to get to her - and it was working.

"Since everyone else brought their stuff in yesterday we had time to wrap everything up. As for you," her eyes sharpened. "I guess you'll have to take care of it yourself. I was already nice enough to extend your deadline. And to be clear, I only did it because you're valedictorian making your painting the center piece and I would lose all credibility without my center piece."

Bora clenched her teeth. "You didn't tell the driver shit, did you?"

Yoona casually examined her nails as she replied. "I don't think you're good enough to be center piece, to be honest."

Bora faked a pout and wiped virtual tears. "Is this what this is about? You're mad I'm the class valedictorian?"

That seemed to get to Yoona. She stopped the examination of her manicured nails and stabbed her index finger at her. "I have nothing to envy from you, Lee Bora. Get that through that thick head of yours."

"Showing envious resentment of someone's achievements. Looks like jealousy to me." Bora patted her head and effectively skirted by her, venturing further down the school hall.

As she reached the stairs leading to the applied arts wing, she stopped dead in her tracks when she heard sobs echoing down the empty hall. She considered pretending she hadn't heard her but then decided it wouldn't be morally correct.

Yoona had her arms folded across her chest and her back still turned to Bora. Only when her sobs dramatically intensified did Bora refrain from rolling her eyes and walk up to her with a sigh.

She tentatively put a hand on her shoulder, making the weeping form flinch and turn in surprise.

Her eyes widened when she saw Bora. "What are you still doing here?" Her voice was wobbly, eyebrows slightly raised. She looked like a deer caught in headlights.

"Are you... okay?" Bora frowned in slight worry.

Yoona scoffed and quickly wiped her tears. "Like you care."

Bora sighed and replied softly. "Of course I do. You know I mean you no harm." They always picked at each other, nothing new under the sun. Why did she cry, then?

Yoona sniffled and played with the hem of her shirt. "It's just that my life is a mess right now. I'm not in control, and I hate it. Seong Hun..." She looked up, not meeting Bora's eyes. "He broke up with me."

Well, that was unexpected.

"And then you dropped all that stress on me by pushing back your deadlines. You're such a bitch." Her last sentence was punctuated by a loud sob. Yoona took a deep breath before talking again. "I'm sorry I was mean to you and I think you're a fantastic artist, I wish I could take back what I said and you know what? You're right, I'm jealous. But, hey, I'm working on it." She smiled timidly, looking up expectantly at Bora.

A laugh escaped Bora's lips. Yoona was so blunt and her mood swings were really hard to keep up with. "I'm sorry about you and Seong Hun."

Yoona's smile faltered as she spoke again. "Do you think..."

"What?" Bora raised her brows.

Avoiding her gaze she said. "No, it's stupid. Forget it."

Dramatically rolling her eyes, Bora insisted. "Come on, spill it!"

"Do you think you could talk to Seong Hun? About me, I mean. You and he have always been good friends since our first year."

Bora held back a wince. Hell no. She was no relationship counselor.

Yoona's eyes were expectantly waiting for an answer. Like she, Bora, was in any better control of her life to fix other people's problems. But she was the one to press the issue in the first place. So she said, "Sure, I'll do it. But I don't have a magic spell to get you guys back together. Don't expect anything." She opened her palms in earnest.

A broad smile illuminated Yoona's still reddened face. "Great! Now let's talk business." She said taking an electronic tablet out of her purse. "Can you confirm your plus ones for tonight?"

No, I can't because no one is going to come as I have no family and friends that seem to care enough, was what she wanted to say.

Instead, she dumbly tried to buy herself time to come up with an answer that wouldn't sound too pathetic. "Um, I don't -"

A glint of something flashed in Yoona's eyes at Bora's expression and she cut her off. "You know what? Who cares about that?" She put the tablet back in her purse. "Do you have an outfit for tonight?"

Yoona rolled her eyes at Bora's blank stare. "You know you can't show up at the reception wearing this." She said giving her a once over. Bora didn't see what was wrong with leather boots and ripped jeans but she kept her thoughts to herself.

"We're going shopping." Yoona commanded then, and Bora almost groaned. "I know exactly what you need to show off these sinful legs of yours." She suggestively cocked an eyebrow with a smile that indicated she was up to no good. And before Bora could respond, Yoona snatched the car keys that were hanging in Bora's hand. "I'm driving."

Bora ran after her in the parking lot, catching up to her. "Only I am allowed to drive this baby." She hissed as she snatched back the car keys.

A mischievous grin split Yoona's face and as they opened their doors, she casually spoke again. "By the way, push back any deadline that far back again and you're dead."

Bora smiled to herself because Yoona hadn't said "don't push back any deadline again" but rather "don't push back any deadline that far back again." And coming from that girl, Bora felt it was a giant's step in their relationship.

People say beware of your enemies. Bora strongly disagreed. Beware of your friends. She'd rather have an enemy outright telling her she hated her than a friend secretly putting her down.

 

* * *

 

 

Bora was spent from her afternoon shopping with Yoona. The latter had bought herself a cute little black dress and had suggested downright outrageous outfits for Bora. Finally they both had agreed on a black short jumpsuit with elbow-length sleeves for Bora with a thin leather belt around the waist and a cleavage that didn't reveal too much. She had bought ankle strap heels as well. She had no qualms about using her credit card. Her father and she never had the best father-daughter relationship; it was scarred and corned ever since she was thirteen.

She was sure her expenses wouldn't make a hole in her father's income. He worked as a sales manager for some private corporation and the pay must be good; she never bothered to look more into it. She knew he used to be an army sergeant. Maybe the money he made was a government's compensation for his services.

In any case, her shopping spree would probably go unnoticed or rather he'd notice but wouldn't say anything to avoid scarring their relationship furthermore. Whatever reason, she didn't care.

Night came and along with it came the exhibition. Bora dropped Yoona off at her house before going back to hers to get ready. They'd agreed on going early to the venue to have time to put up Bora's piece in the exhibition hall. Her father wasn't back home yet and she couldn't help but wonder if he'd come after all. Probably not. But she dared wish anyway.

 

* * *

The Seoul Arts Center consisted of five main buildings. She was heading for the last one, the Hangaram Art Museum.

It was located in the left wing of the center and several signs showed her the way. Yoona really had invested a lot of time in this. The museum was of cylindrical shape and was three stories high. She bypassed five galleries with her colossal canvas under her arm before reaching the last story. There stood a gigantic gallery in the open space taking up the entire floor's size. Her eyes didn't know what to take in first.

 

The walls were a dazzling white and the floor was made of glass. Looking through she could see the lower levels and people gathering in the lobby. Her class's artworks were already exhibited, blotches of dark colors clashing with the brightness of the walls and lights. It was mesmerizing. The ceiling was dizzyingly high to be able to fit gigantic sized paintings. One day, she thought to herself. One day, I'll have my own work put up here. One day. Some day. But not today.

She almost forgot why she was here and the emergency at hand. Almost. Because Yoona appeared then, snapping her out of her haze. Mouth agape, she studied Bora's painting. She cautiously took it in her hands.

"This is... exquisite." She gasped.

Pride swelled up in Bora's heart. "You like it?" She anxiously tugged at her hair and put a hand in her jumpsuit's pocket.

"I adore it! How the hell did you pull off that crystal silver shade on the stones? They look so real. That must've taken months to perfect. Come, we'll hang it."

An hour into the exhibition, Bora had made conversation with pretty much all her classmates' relatives and friends all of whom had sang praises about her work. She even met the head of the Seoul Arts Center and he profusely complimented her.

Before the man left he gave her a phone number, offering to transfer her work to the Seoul Museum of Art to be exhibited permanently since the Harangam Art Museum only held temporary exhibitions and she had to excuse herself to the bathroom right after that to scream her joy out.

She then schooled her features and went back to the gallery to carry on with the chit-chat. She was on cloud 9 when she bumped into someone. And not just anyone, it was her painting professor, Mrs. Cha. She was studying Bora's painting.

"That is an excellent piece, Ms. Lee." The woman praised still scrutinizing the canvas, and Bora grinned and thanked her teacher.

"Art is an enthralling thing. It can harness the artist's deepest of emotions and translate it into shapes and shades. Sometimes, without the artist even realizing it."

Bora furrowed her brows. "I don't understand."

Mrs. Cha's eyebrows shot up, almost disappearing to her hairline. "I've come to know your ways over the past few years. I've noticed you often strive for realism. What is more explicit than a silhouette held captive of a cage she doesn't seem to be willing to escape from to express the artist's inner demons?"

"With all due respect, I think you're reading into this a bit much." Bora softly replied, fidgeting. A smooth lie and Mrs. Cha saw right through it. She was one of the few people Bora had outright told about the circumstances of her mother's accident. People knew Bora had lost her mom in a car crash but not the details that came along. How she had technically provoked the death of her mother. And the guilt that had washed through her body and soul ever since.

"I know you feel guilty about your mother's death. Survivor's guilt is a common occurrence after traumatic events." Mrs. Cha started. Bora balled her fists and clenched her teeth, biting her tongue not to snap at the woman. She downright hated when people pretended to know her, when they really, really did not.

"Just like that silhouette is not trying to escape the cage; you're wallowing in your guilt and basking in toxic feelings."

Bora's throat constricted and she didn't think she could talk without her voice breaking, so she kept quiet, looking at her feet.

"Your guilt is your own golden cage, personally designed for you to settle in. Guilt is to the soul what pain is to the body. But no amount of guilt can change the past. Even if settling for guilt seems cozy, you're choosing the easy way out because in the end, a golden cage is still just a cage." That last sentence struck something in Bora, though her pride would never let her admit it. Truth was, she had lost the keys to that cage eight years ago and in absence of other options, gold would have to do.

"You need to step away from that cage." She added gently. "You need to break free and be whole again. You've just finished college; I think it's a good time to start fresh. Let go of that burden and build a new life."

Bora let out a shaky laugh as she looked up. Anywhere but in the direction of her teacher. She was too weak to hold her stare. "Easier said than done."

"I know, but with time and effort I'm confident you'll eventually succeed. You're destined to great things, Ms. Lee. It'd be a shame to let such fickle things hold you back. I'm looking forward for the day you come to me and tell me you've made it. I'll wait." She kindly smiled at her and left.

Bora was left alone with the turmoil of her emotions running wild.

She wasn't in any mood to party after that so she made her way back to the parking lot not stopping when Yoona called out to her from afar.

She was spacing out and just wanted to go back home, curl up on her bed and stop pretending she was fine, because she was not. She had a hole in her heart. And she had no energy left in her for forced interactions and unnecessary conversations. She had played her part tonight. It was time to wrap up and rest.

Unfortunately, she realized as she arrived back home, life just seemed to have other plans for her.

Sleep would have to wait.


	4. Hush Hush

It was barely 9pm when Bora left the Arts Center and the streets of Seoul were eerily empty. Hands on the steering wheel, she was in a trance of sorts as her teacher's words kept replaying over and over in her head. She was staring blankly ahead and the purring of the engine almost lulled her to sleep.

A sigh of relief escaped her lips when she pulled up in her street. She parked her car a few houses down her own and unstrapped her heels as soon as she set foot on the ground. These were killer heels. Literally. She groaned in relief when her feet made contact with the cool smooth concrete.

Heels in one hand and her clutch in the other, she mechanically ascended the uphill slope of her street to her house. Immersed in her thoughts, she walked in the direction of her backyard to get to her painting studio using a pathway located between the left side of her house and the neighboring house's garage.

She retreated in her steps when her brain processed what she had just bypassed: a car she had never seen before was parked next to her father's. A white foreign sports car. The car was registered in Busan and she couldn't help but stare at the gleaming vehicle with wide eyes. She caressed its body with gentleness like it was a fragile thing that could shatter with a slight touch of the fingertips.

A hand on the car's hood, she looked back up to her house. There was no light inside, nothing betraying if there was anyone in, though she suspected there was. An uneasy feeling grew in the pit of her stomach and although the night wasn't chilly, she wrapped her hands around her body as a chill crawled down her nape. She inspected the street but not a single soul roamed around and she was suddenly thankful for the abundance of city lights. Something just didn't sit right with this whole situation.

She carefully treaded towards the pathway and her heartbeat picked up when she heard voices coming from the living room window located on the side wall of the house. She instantly came to a standstill. They never had guests over. No family. No friends.

Out of the two glass panes, the one furthest from her was wide open. Bora wasn't one to eavesdrop, but in that moment something in her pushed her to crouch down under the window and urged her not to make a sound.

Slowly crawling under the windowsill she made out two sets of voices. The first one she identified as her father's. The second one she didn't recognize. It was raspy and its owner was a guy who sounded rather young.

She was moving at a snail's pace and briefly wondered what anyone passing by would've thought of a grown woman crawling around on all fours in slow motions. She must look ridiculous.

Her car keys faintly brushed a metallic pipe and she winced, pressing her eyes shut at the sound. She thought she'd flatline right on that pathway. After a few seconds, the two men were still talking and didn't seem to have heard the commotion. She let out a sigh of relief and covered her heart with a clammy palm. After more wiggling, she was now under the window and lifted herself up to peek inside the room.

The lights were off, another hint that something was off. The men were having a heated conversation. Or rather her father looked furious while the guy just leaned against a piece of furniture, his back facing her. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was sporting a black cap and black tank top.

She noticed his right arm was tatted up. From her vantage point, she got a glimpse of dark ink spreading from shoulder to the tip of his fingers. The thickness of the curtains didn't allow her to make out the pattern.

"... problem remains." The tatted-up guy was saying calmly. "She will turn 21 tomorrow, meaning she technically will have access to all the files and records. It's a liability Father can't afford."

I'm turning 21 tomorrow, Bora thought, and a lump formed in her throat as it became obvious then that she was the subject of their argument.

"She never questioned the circumstances of her mother's death." Her father replied darkly, and she felt her heartbeat falter.

Her mother? What circumstances? Her mother had lost her mind. She was on a treatment for schizophrenia. Her attention spiked up and she put her hair behind her ears in an effort not to miss a piece of information.

"If she ever discovers what you're hiding from her –" The guy paused, leaving the other man's imagination run wild.

Bora's own imagination wreaked havoc at the thought that her oblivious father had purposely hidden something from her for years. Worse still, something about her own mother.

Her father looked bothered and slightly helpless, a far cry from what she was used to.

The guy carried on, relaxed as ever. "We don't know how she'll react. She might go berserk like her mother did."

Hell yeah. Her mind was already going berserk just hearing that gibberish nonsense.

The guy's stance shifted and his muscled arms came to rest on the piece of furniture behind him for Bora to admire. His tattoo clearly didn't stop at his shoulders and she guessed it carried on under his shirt, all the way to his chest. "Why hold onto those records?"

Her attention snapped back to her father whose expression shifted, hard as stone. "You know why. That's leverage; we can't keep all the records in one place. What was the point of making copies if we retain them all in one place? Did your father think about that, Jackson?"

Jackson.

"Don't worry about that. The files will be safe and sound in Busan. It's classified business only accessible to trusted ones."

Her dad snorted and the Jackson guy shot back. "You cut all ties with the organization when your wife was killed. Consider it a favor from Father to lift that weight off your shoulders. If you don't want history repeating itself, grant me access to the safe. Simple as that."

From the lack of response on her father's part, Jackson shrugged. "If you want your daughter snooping around and getting into an accident too, that's fine by me."

The emphasis on the word "accident" made her uncomfortable. Was that a reference to her mother's accident? Did her father lie about her mother's death? Was she not insane? Was she murdered? Her thoughts made her dizzy and she had to grip the windowsill in order not to lose her balance and risk giving away her whereabouts.

Jackson carried on. "You're a fool if you think they've let you off the hook just because you've stepped down from the business. They monitor your every moves, as well as Bora's." He leaned off the piece of furniture, pointing an accusing finger her father's way. "You've made choices and you need to own up to them."

The older man opened his mouth to reply when a knock abruptly erupted from the front door, startling the two guys as well as Bora.

"Were you expecting someone?" Jackson inquired, taking a step back. His voice was alert. He still had his back to her and she wanted to see his face.

"Stay put." Her father ordered after staring hard at Jackson. With that, he went for the door.

As if reading Bora's mind, Jackson slowly walked to the coffee table, probably to get an earful of what was going to be said, letting Bora get an eyeful of his profile in the process. He was easy on the eye. He had a prominent Adam apple and pierced lips. His walk exuded confidence and grace, and he was oozing testosterone. In addition to his lips, his ears were pierced. It was kinda hot.

"Is Bora here?" She suddenly heard a voice coming from the front door and her first thought was, Woo Bin?

She hadn't paid attention when he had pulled up his car in front of her house. Nor had she noticed his footsteps when he had walked to the door. Bora could make out his voice from the corner of her house but Jackson seemed to have caught that as well from the inside since his head jerked up in curiosity.

"Bora?" Her father's confused voice replied. "She's at her senior exhibition. I was on my way to join her."

But was he, really?

Jackson looked skeptical as well as he narrowed his eyes.

"I went there but one of her classmates told me she had left early looking upset. I thought she'd be home by now."

Her blood ran cold. Woo Bin was seconds away from unintentionally throwing her under the bus. She internally thanked fate for making her park her car a few houses down.

"Weren't you supposed to be her ride?" Her father pried, recalling information Bora had dumped on him a couple weeks ago.

"Yeah, that is – that's complicated. I kind of ditched on her." He sounded uncomfortable.

Jackson furrowed his brow and cocked his head at that.

"That's a long story." Woo Bin cut short.

That got an eye roll from Bora. It really wasn't.

"Why did she leave so early? What happened?"

"I don't know, that's why I came. I wanted to check on her." He said, worry in his voice and Bora swore she heard a huffed scoff coming out of Jackson's mouth.

"I'll try calling her cell phone. Thank you, Sir." Woo Bin concluded.

The door was shut, and she pushed herself off the wall and quickly hid behind the corner of her house on the backyard's side. Only when she heard the slamming of a car door did she hurry back to the window to hear the end of the conversation.

"You sure look like you were on your way to an art exhibition." Jackson was saying in a mocking tone and Bora wanted to high five him.

Ignoring his comment, Bora's father passed by him in a rush, opening and closing several drawers before getting a notepad out and messily scribbling something down. He ripped the page and handed it to Jackson.

"Here. Now, leave." He said in a rushed tone. "She can't find you here."

Jackson rubbed his lower lip as he chuckled before taking the note. "See ya, old man."

His lack of etiquette made Bora's jaw drop but her father didn't seem to mind. Before she could compute what was happening, the guy was at the door and heading to his car. His car that was conveniently parked in front of the pathway. The pathway on which she was eavesdropping.

When she finally registered the situation, she fumbled to get up and threw herself inside the bushes aligned along her neighbor's garage wall. Branches and thorns prickled at her bare legs and arms and she bit her lip in an effort not to cry out in pain. She didn't even let her mind wonder about what kind of insects could be lurking in the earth.

The footsteps neared and without any warning, her phone started vibrating. Loud. Her heart missed several beats. She fumbled to her clutch to shut the device down with horror etched on her features. The footsteps stopped just as she pressed the red button and she covered her mouth and nose with both hands to stifle her heavy breathing.

She was so screwed.


	5. Pity Party

She wasn’t screwed. She was done for. Dead. There was no reasonable, believable way to explain why she was hiding in some bush. A thousand of scenarios hurtled through her mind but she didn’t manage to catch a single one as adrenaline coursed through her veins. Her heartbeat was deafening and preventing her from processing her thoughts clearly.

The steps neared her position and she almost got out of her hideout in surrender. At least, she’d have some semblance of dignity left. Maybe. Just as she was having an inner debate with herself, the shrill ringing of a phone sounded. Her heart felt heavy as a stone and almost fell to her feet before she realized it wasn’t her phone but the guy’s.

He instantly picked up. “What is it?” His raspy voice resonated in the silence of the night. Bora seized the opportunity to take an intake of breath, as quietly as possible. She reminded herself of a gaping goldfish. “I’m working on it.” Jackson said.

Silence ensued and stretched on for so long, Bora thought he had hung up and was pulling a prank on her, testing her stamina. Her squat-like position was uncomfortable and she was a messy tangle of limbs. Her legs were begging for release when a chuckle echoed and Bora cocked an eyebrow. _It can laugh?_  

“Where even do they sell that?” He said and Bora could tell he was smiling from his voice. “Okay, text me the restaurant’s address. I’ll get you a box when I come back.”

She rolled her eyes. He sounded like he was on a leisure trip in the capital city and would bring back souvenirs to a girlfriend, when really he was conducting hush hush business with her father.

“Text me the address, I’ll go check it out now.” He said, his steps fading away. Bora thought she’d cry in relief. A car door slammed shut and the roaring of the engine eventually disappeared into the night.

Even as the night grew still, Bora couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. Even though he had left, she stayed in position, too scared to dare lift a finger and only after a good fifteen minutes had passed did she carefully step out the bush. Her limbs were numb from the fresh breeze. She managed to get to her studio on wobbly legs before they gave out and she was on her knees.

Her body was trembling in fear, incomprehension and anger. She was so angry. Her life had been a masquerade. A parody built on a lie. A comedy in which she had been the lead, unbeknownst to her. Her only family member left presumably lied about the fate of the person she had cared about the most in this world. Her father had lied about her mother’s death. He had let her dwell on the past, never easing her pain, albeit the fact he could have. He hadn’t.

Questions swirled in her brain. What was one supposed to do in this kind of situation? She wasn’t sure she could google that. Should she confront her father? Should she forget everything all together? The last option wasn’t one. No way could she forget about this.

She was still prostrated on the floor, when the door flew open making her shoot up from her spot on the floor. She spun around, channeling her inner combat moves her father had taught her growing up. But she didn’t do anything as she took in the familiar features of her best friend.

He looked furious and angry and he immediately lashed out at her as soon as he set his eyes on her figure. “Where were you? I’ve been calling you non-stop! Do you know how worried I was? When I went to the Arts Center, that girl told me –”

“The Arts Center?” She interrupted, puzzled. Her mind was struggling to keep up with him, still disturbed by the earlier events.

He paused, ruffling his hair. “I went for you.” He sighed. “I wanted to surprise you is all. I – “ He took a step back and gave her a once-over, taking in her appearance, from the leaves stuck in her messy hair, to the scratches etched on her bare legs from the thorns and branches. “What ever happened to you?” He said in bewilderment. “Are you hurt?”

“What happened to me?” She whispered, taking a few steps back.

Her peculiar behavior alarmed him and he approached her before cupping her cheeks forcing her to look into her eyes. “What happened?” He said with authority.

“I think,” she started, and Woo Bin urged her to carry on with his eyes. “I think my mom was killed.” She finished, tears blurring her vision but she quickly blinked them away. Woo Bin’s face was impassible, she had no idea what he might be thinking. Ever so slowly he removed his hands and took a step back from her. And she explained everything to him.

“Something’s up. You _have_ to believe me!” Bora pleaded at an emotionless Woo Bin after her rushed account of the conversation she’d heard. “I know what I heard. I don’t know what it means, but we’re going to find out.” She decided on the spot. She was frantic. Pacing back and forth, babbling and making up theories.

Suddenly, two strong hands landed on her shoulders and Woo Bin was boring into her chocolate tinted eyes. “No, we’re not.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

 “Why are you so hell-bent on opening up old wounds?” He asked placidly, looking utterly oblivious to the situation. You’d believe she had told him about the weather.

She stared at him with wide eyes. “Opening – “ She gasped, cutting herself off. She was furious. She turned around, her hands holding her skull. She felt like it would explode any moment, splattering bits of brains on the wooden walls and concrete floor, leaving stains of blood on Woo Bin’s tan face and dark suit, on the blank canvases piled up in a dark corner.

“What you heard was probably nothing but a misunderstanding. You didn’t even hear the conversation from the beginning and you’re jumping to hasty conclusions. Let it go.” He asserted from behind her. He tried to sound detached but, even without seeing his expression, Bora could tell he was concerned about her mental state from his voice.

Woo Bin had always been so put together, she didn’t understand his unusual reaction. She flipped around, flabbergasted. “My mother might’ve been _murdered_ and you want me to _let it go_? Do you even hear yourself talking?” She uttered through clenched teeth.

“She’s dead, Bora. Dead! And _nothing_ will make her come back!” He yelled.

“You’re such a jerk!” She half laughed half cried, her voice trembling with rage.

He reached for her shoulders again, forcing her closer to him. “Don’t you understand? How much I care about you and –“

She hastily broke out of his hold and yelled back. “I don’t even know why I expected you to understand. All these years, you’ve led the perfect life with your perfect parents. I’m sorry I ever bothered you with my daddy issues. I wonder how pathetic I must have looked to you all those years ago.” She chuckled. “Did you pity me? Well, guess what? I’m not some charity case and this is no pity party.”

He growled. “You were never a charity case to me. Seeing you torturing yourself over your mother’s death and dwelling on the past… It – It’s killing me.” He said, his eyes softening. “Please, promise me you won’t look into it. Just… promise me to stay away from whatever this is.  Don’t you think your father would have had a legitimate reason to hide anything from you?” He pleaded desperately.

A long silence stretched as they just bore into each other’s eyes. Ever so slowly, Bora moved forward, stopping her face mere inches away from Woo Bin’s, a determined look on her face. “I’m going to find out who killed my mother.” She stretched out each word to make sure he’d hear her correctly, never breaking eye contact. “And I’m going to make them pay.”

Her gaze was fierce, never faltering, and a glimmer of something played in Woo Bin’s eyes but he closed his eyes in frustration before she could identify it. She was being her stubborn self and before he could reason her some more, she brushed past him heading to her bedroom, leaving a helpless Woo Bin behind.

Tonight, she decided. Tonight, she would get to the bottom of it.

 


	6. Korean Ambush

Bora was facing her front door. She smoothed down her outfit and hair, and took a deep breath. She knocked on the door, beating her knuckles with unnecessary strength.

She could almost trick herself into thinking her mother would be in the kitchen cooking something delicious while her father would come to get the door. Almost. Truth was, she had no family to come home to.

A few seconds later, the door unlocked snapping her out of her haze. She came face to face with her father. She looked at him, really _looked_ at him this time. His pepper-salt hair. His calm face. Long gone was the vigorous look he adorned while speaking to Jackson. He didn’t look like a man with heavy secrets buried six-feet deep underneath the surface. This time, she looked beyond the façade and suddenly she wasn’t face to face with a caring and oblivious father. No, she was face to face with a man she didn’t know. She was living with a stranger.

She swept past him but halted in front of the stairs.

“Did anyone come by?” She tested, turning around.

“No one.” He replied imperturbable.

Lies, lies, lies. She balled her fists and studied his features for anything that could seem off compared to his usual self. Her last hopes faded out just like matches would die with the breeze.

 _His lying face is his everyday face_ , she thought bitterly.

“Oh, Woo Bin came by looking for you. He said you’d left early. Is the exhibition over already?” He dared ask her.

She didn’t reply straight away. She needed to keep up the act. Make him believe she was still his stupidly gullible daughter.

“It’s not. I felt sick.” She lied after making sure she could trust her voice from not breaking.

The art of lying must run in the family, because he didn’t pry for more information, satisfied with her paltry excuse. He nodded and she turned back, running up the stairs before he could go on pretending he cared.

If you’d asked Bora what her life priorities were 24 hours ago, she’d have replied something along the lines of graduating college, opening her very own art gallery and having her pieces exhibited in the world’s most renowned museums. Very mundane things, if you asked her. Now she wasn’t so sure anymore. Things that never mattered before started to matter and things that used to matter now seemed risible. A hole she thought she had sealed reopened in her heart and it was in the shape of a grave.

Midnight struck. 21 years ago she was born. Bora sighed.

_Happy birthday, me. Have a wonderful day._

 

* * *

Once in her bedroom, she allowed herself some time to gather her thoughts. Basking in the heavy silence, she sat on the edge on her bed and closed her eyes, recapping the night’s events.

Her mother’s accident wasn’t one. What she guessed was evidence of it was confined in a safe. Her father was part of some shady business which wanted her away from that safe. A safe she _could_ access. The safe was the recurring variable. She needed to get to it. But how?

She racked her brain. Where could it be? Probably in a bank but the problem only thickened. Before she could wonder how to get to the safe, she had to find out which bank it was stashed in. She went through the conversation she’d listened in on. No mention of a bank. A detail came back to her and her eyes lit up.

The notepad. She needed to get the notepad.

 

* * *

 

 

The notepad turned out to be easier to get to than she had originally thought. No ground-breaking innovative plan required. She just waited until her father went to sleep around 3am and tip-toed her way to the living room. There, she rummaged through all the drawers until she hit the jackpot. It was filled with pens and miscellaneous items. She snatched the notepad and swiftly went back up to her room.

She turned on her desk lamp and examined the notebook. The top of the page was ripped – and tucked away in Jackson’s pocket. Marks from the pressure of her father’s pen had been left on the blank page facing her.

She took a pencil and began darkening the page. Seconds later, she looked eagerly at what appeared before her. On the greyed page stood out letters from the previous page.

She squinted her eyes and wrote down what she read. “SC Capital”. And then, “LJH-08SK”. Finally, a series of numbers she couldn’t make out.

She looked up “SC Capital” on her laptop and almost held her fist above her head in victory.

A bank. SC stood for Standard Chartered. A bank implanted in Seoul. She had a bank, a safe number but the numbers she still couldn’t make out. She had a feeling they were crucial to her plan. What if she was asked a safety code and this was it?

Biting her nails, she decided she’d take her chances and improvise if need be.

The bank opened at 8am, meaning she had five hours to prepare. She showered and went through her rack of clothes, picking an all-black outfit. She tied her hair in a ponytail and tucked it in a dark cap. She looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and what she saw puzzled her mind. It was the complexion of a girl she didn’t know, eyes sparkling and fueled with drive.  Her heart was racing. It was like her body was ahead of time and knew the few hours to come would be life changing.

She was gradually cracking her eyes open to her environment and realizing she hadn’t been living properly before. She had accused her father of being a shell of what he used to be but she was no better. Her life had had no real meaning prior to this night, even though she couldn’t tell it in that moment. The thrill of finding a purpose sent tingles coursing through her whole body.

Her train of thoughts was interrupted by the vibrating of her phone. It was Woo Bin. She didn’t pick up. He would try and convince her to let it go but she was dead set on investigating and she wouldn’t back down for anything.

She stayed in her room most of the night, pacing and stretching. She intended on getting to the safe before Jackson. She had to be two steps ahead of him. The earlier, the better. She just hoped his mindset would diverge from hers. Let him wander around Seoul before retrieving whatever he came for.

Just to make sure, she set off her house at 6am and pulled up half an hour later in the bank’s street. She parked her car on the sidewalk opposite the bank. She stayed in the driver’s seat, her eyes fixed on the entrance. Bora grinned. She had the perfect angle to monitor the comings and goings of people.

She went to get herself a steamy cup of coffee to help her get through the hour and a half of waiting to a nearby café.

7:50 am. A woman dressed in a suit and adorning a neat bun stopped in front of the bank. She eased the shutters up before stepping inside the building. Bora was checking her appearance in the rearview mirror when something drew her attention in her peripheral vision.

Someone came out from an alleyway she might have never noticed had her attention not been drawn to it. The man had his hands tucked away in his pockets and wore a… black cap. She grunted in irritation and violently slapped her steering wheel in dismay when she recognized the features of her father’s acquaintance. Jackson. That shitface. He was becoming a mutable variable in her grand scheme of things. She needed to come up with a new plan and quick. If not, her opening to get to the safe would be lost until Doomsday. She would never get to uncover the truths about her existence. As dramatic as it sounded.

Straightening her shoulders, she decided she wouldn’t let a free electron ruin her plans. She got out of her car just as he stepped inside the colossal building.

Now what? Should she go in and **pull off a heist**? Just as that thought popped up in her head, her brain pictured herself bursting through the main doors in an all-black attire à la Mrs. Smith, an Uzi gun in each hand, grenades strapped to her hip and a Colt 45 concealed in her knee-length boots.

She got a glimpse of her thin figure through the bank’s glass windows and almost laughed at herself. At least, she already had the black outfit, she remarked with a shrug. Now, she wasn’t exactly sure if her build was imposing enough to do without two thirds of the required gear. She had heard about a **loner** who had pulled off multiple heists throughout Korea without ever getting caught. She could need a hand right now.

She stared back at the alleyway Jackson had come from. He was bound to go back there after finishing his business in the bank so she carefully treaded towards it. The sun was fully up but the alley was narrow and darkened by the towering buildings. The path was long and led to another street. There were fire escape stairs from the building’s apartments and garbage cans. She wrinkled her nose as the pungent stench of trash reached her nostrils.

She hid behind a bin and peeked from her spot, monitoring Jackson’s position. No more than five minutes later he finished his deed and exited the firm’s building. She took off her cap and ruffled her hair before leaning on the brick wall, her back to the street, feigning the best sickened look she could muster. She wrung her features as if she was going through excruciating pain, the filthy smell of garbage made it easy. She made sure to have her hair conceal her face. Though he knew her by name, she had a feeling he didn’t know what she looked like. She wanted it to stay that way.

Footsteps echoed in the alley and her heartbeat picked up. She hadn’t brought any weapon because she hadn’t planned on using one. She realized then she really hadn’t thought this through enough. The footsteps slowed down before coming to a standstill altogether. Bora let out the most pitiful moans she could, clinging onto her stomach, her forehead resting on the brick wall.

“Hey… Are you okay?”

Her face still concealed, she rolled her eyes. Did she look _okay_? She didn’t respond and, whimpering, lazily pivoted her body in a way she would be facing the guy before reaching out into the air. Her eyes were met with a pair of combat boots. She scraped her fingers helplessly on the ground before his feet.

“Are you okay?” He repeated worryingly, crouching down beside her. His hands were empty.

“I…”

Keeping her head down, she reached to his clothes and began feeling him up. She palpated his pockets, making it look as if she was scrambling to stand up. He made it to help her get up to her feet, holding her elbows.

“We should go to a hospital.”

Her hands gripped his jacket. There. Something hard against his chest. A hand slipping between his jacket and shirt, she threw caution to the wind, and lifted her head up, meeting a pair of pupils of the most mesmerizing shade. She took a hold of the box wrapped in what felt like Kraft paper and he looked so genuinely worried for her, she almost felt sorry for what she did next.

“I’m gonna need that.”

A perplexed look formed on his face before she kicked him in the groin. Extra hard. She drew the package out of his inner pocket, and ran, loot in hand. But before she could reach the exit of the suddenly never ending alley back to her car, she was tackled to the ground by a super heavy body and a shriek escaped her. Her knees hit the hard concrete and pain surged from her knee to her skull.

On top of her, Jackson violently turned her body around without ceremony until she was on her back and facing him. Straddling her waist, his eyes roamed on her face, taking in every detail like he was remembering her features and filing them away for future reference. So much for staying anonymous. She was struggling against his hold. He pinned her arms above her head and she shot him a nasty look. Looking unaffected, he pried her fingers open, effectively taking back his stolen good.

“I’ll be taking this back, thank you very much.”

She arched her back.

“You’ll have to get through me first.” She bared her teeth, a confidence she never thought she possessed taking hold of her body.

He laughed and gave her a once-over. “Haven’t I already?”

A glint of mischief sparkling in her eyes, she folded her legs. Self-defense classes her father had given her in her teens came back to her. She asserted a swift blow with her knee in the direction of his crotch. He winced, but his grip on her wrists didn’t loosen. She thrashed as hard as she could but it was obvious she was in no position of power. So she resorted to her last means, the most desperate one – she screamed her lungs out.

“ _Help! I’m being att-lqkshfsdkjlf”_

His hand went flying to her mouth and she used the opening to twist his wrist, shifting their position. He was on his back and she knelt down next to him. She ripped the box out of his hand again. She scrambled to her feet and put the packet in her back pocket but before she could flee, he shot up to his feet and grabbed her wrist.

 She reacted fast this time, and on they exchanged kicks in perfect sync, a mastered ballet of blows and parries, none of them taking over, efficiently dodging their opponent’s tricks. They both came to the realization that the result of this fight would boil down to one thing: stamina. She really should have gone to the gym more often instead of stuffing herself with junk food, almost passed out on Woobin’s couch every weekend, she thought to herself.

She was holding her own just fine, when an excruciating pain suddenly seized her chest.

“Wait…” Bora groaned between two heavy pants, one hand ahead of her to keep him at a distance while another clutched her heart.

A blur of knuckles and she was on the floor again, the metallic taste of blood filling her mouth. Unceremoniously, he grabbed her throat and put her back up, slamming her against the alley’s wall. Her head hit a rock-solid wall and white stars clogged her vision. When they disappeared, she was dizzy and were it not for his iron hold on her neck, she wouldn’t be able to stand upright.

His fingers were wrapped around her neck and a hand reached to her back pocket, retrieving his item. She tried alleviating the pressure on her neck with her hands, but he wouldn’t budge. His ice-cold eyes bore into hers.

 “What’s your name?”

Bora’s face was turning blue. She gagged and slapped his forearm.

“’I’m sorry, my manners. I’m Wang. Jackson Wang. How about you?”

A tear escaped her and she managed to moan weakly. “C-Can’t b-brea…”

He frowned and loosened his grip – though not by much.

She gasped for air. “L-Lee… Bora”

Recognition emerged on his face. He closed his eyes and lifted his head up as if asking God to grant him strength. Looking down, he assessed her for a few seconds before speaking again.

“Well… Lee Bora.” He started, testing her name on his tongue. “You have no idea what you just got yourself into.” He laughed, his laugh holding no warmth whatsoever.

“G-Give it… to me.” She says looking down to his hand holding the box. “P-P…please”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Why do you even care?”

Voices and footsteps came from her right, on the other end of the alley. Jackson looked in the direction of the noise and titled his head. Then, he looked back at her.

He stared her down and pressed his body against hers. She shrunk herself. His lips brushed against her ear, the chilly ring on his lower lip sending shivers coursing down her body, as he whispered. “I don’t.”

He tilted his head back and let his eyes wander around her face. He took in the cuts and the red spots that would soon become shades of purple. She was paralyzed from the intensity of his gaze. His fingers loosened and his thumb went to her lower lip, wiping a stain of blood. She winced from the surge of pain.

Abruptly, air painfully rushed back into her lungs as he stepped away from her after shoving something in her chest. She coughed and gulped in air, holding onto it like a drowning sailor to his lifebelt.

Tearing her gaze away from his, she glanced in the direction of the footsteps. She saw two men dressed in black at the other end of the alley and heading their way.

“Wh-Who are they?” She stuttered, still dazed.

“Leave.”

Her eyes looked at the box he had given her. “Why are you doing this?”

“Wasn’t it what you wanted?” He snarled.

“No…” She shook her head shakily. “That’s too easy.”

He grabbed her arm. “Leave before I actually do some damage to that pretty face of yours.”

She cringed back. Still holding his gaze, she backed away from the alley, leaving him.

“What have you done?” She heard one of the men say when she reached the corner.

She looked back. Jackson didn’t bother reply and launched himself at the two men. And this time, it was much more violent. She creased her brow when a flash of silver caught her eye. A gun. These men had weapons. Horror on her features, she got out of the alley and ran to her car.

With trembling hands, she started the ignition. She stopped at the entrance of the alleyway and rolled the passenger’s window down.

“Wang!” She screamed. He glanced her way and she winced when he almost got a hit in the jaw from the distraction. “Get in the car!”

Jackson had put one of his opponent down and he was struggling with the remaining one. He kicked him in the shin. Before the man could get back up, Jackson sprinted towards her. He hopped in the car through the freaking window and her jaw dropped. He literally managed to fit his six-foot tall body through a _car window._

He scowled at her. “What are you waiting for? Our deaths? Get going already!”

The men were indeed hot on Jackson’s trail and she stepped on the gas pedal. She didn’t have time to sigh in relief, Jackson cursed.

“What?”

Not sparing her a glance, he leaned his head on the headrest and closed his eyes. “They’re following us.”

“What?” She repeated dumbly. “How did you–“

He grunted and rubbed his face.

“Listen to me very carefully.”

Her ears perked up.

“You searched trouble, you got trouble. Now that you’re in the game you’ll have to play, there’s no going back from that point on. If you want to survive, you do exactly as I say. Understood?”

She tore her gaze away from the road and would have scoffed at his words if he hadn’t looked so serious. She gulped and nodded.

“Good. First things first. We’re gonna have to lose them.”


	7. Car Chasing 101

Bora and Jackson had picked the worst day for a joy ride. It was a Monday in the middle of one of the busiest business district of South Korea's capital, a buzzing hive of activity where tall buildings towered over rushed pedestrians whose lungs burned from the burning stench of gasoline and pollution.

Unfortunately, the area was impossible to drive through at car-chasing speed. The maneuver would have required her running over a few people in passing. She had bought her car a while back and never even had if only a parking ticket. Bora's red Mazda could go miles without needing a refill on gas. That wasn't what she was worried about. She just didn’t see herself appear before a court on a charge of homicide.

The thing though, was that right after Jackson had hopped into the car, five gigantic motorbikes had appeared in her rearview mirror and started chasing after them.

Bora threw caution to the wind and accelerated, zigzagging between cars, making drivers honk angrily at them. She wove through traffic effortlessly until she reached the ring road. The motorbikes kept up with her, though. Following the exact same path, they were barely a few cars away from them.

When she reached the city, Bora looked at Jackson, her hands tight around the steering wheel as though letting go of it would make the bad guys catch up on them.

"Who the hell are they?" She asked, her emotions a mixture of bewilderment and terror at people going to such great lengths to get to her.

 Even if her car could go on miles, she'd never had to shake off pursuers in the past. How exactly she was supposed to lose them was a big question mark to her.

Jackson looked back and said, "Turn left… The other left, you idiot!"

She recoiled in her seat. She had turned right and into the market streets of Seoul.

"Don't call me an idiot, moron!" She rebelled, even though she was in the wrong.

"Don't call me a moron, idiot!" Jackson shot back.

She gaped at him. " _You_  started it!"

"Can't you tell the difference between left and right?" He shouted angrily.

"I panicked!" She retorted.

 Jackson pierced her with his gaze as if she had said the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard.

She probably had.

“You don’t get to panic when you’re being chased down by cutthroat men-in-black!”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t introduced to Car Chasing 101, Wang!” She retorted exasperated at his condescending tone. Now wasn’t the time to lecture her.

Bora and Jackson were forced to stop their bickering when one biker passed them to ride in front of Bora’s car, while the other four remained at a distance.

Following her instinct, she surprised both herself and Jackson as she pushed her feet down on the gas pedal. She gasped when the man hit the hood, his bike flying in the distance. He flew above the roof and fell behind them obstructing the way to his peers.

Jackson sneered and shot her a mocking look in her peripheral vision. “You’re a natural, I see.”

She gave him a dirty look and honked angrily at pedestrians and market patrons. They scurried off, pushing themselves against the walls and creating a path in the middle of the lane. She turned in a less crowded path, getting away from the market as much as possible. The last thing she wanted was to get innocents hurt because of them.

"I hate this city." Jackson mumbled, looking at the crowd with disgust.

"Tell me about it.” She said through clenched teeth.

She had lived in Seoul for the past eight years but had never gotten used to it. She preferred the calmness of the coastal city of Busan, her hometown.

 Jackson furrowed his brows and his eyes widened. But not at her statement. He must’ve heard it first because he bent down out of the blue, dragging Bora down along. A millisecond later, she heard the wheezing, and then shattering glass. She shrieked as bullet impacts appeared on her rearview mirror. She whipped the car around, nearly driving over a stall of fruits. They came out on a new street empty of people, successfully getting out of the market.

They had gone from trying to escape pursuers, to trying to escape death.

"Holy shit! They're trying to kill us, now?" Bora yelled at Jackson.

She didn’t even realize she was yelling. Her senses were numbed and her instincts had taken over.

"No, they're trying to kill  _you_ , love. You're probably number one on the country's most wanted list as we speak." He replied eyeing her up and down with disgust as if he couldn’t believe someone like her could be number one on the country’s most wanted list.

She gawked at him.

"This is what you get for meddling in other people's business." He went on, looking for their attackers in his side mirror. "Turn there." He ordered, pointing the way with his finger this time.

She took a sharp turn and they ended up in a narrow lane stretching on for miles.

The four remaining bikers were behind and Bora sped up as two of them caught up on them, one on each side of the car. She glanced at the one on her left.

"Brake." Jackson ordered.

Her stomach twisted. The man’s face shielded by a helmet, the brunette never caught his gaze. She could only see the barrel of a gun pointed her way through the window.

"Hit the brake!” He barked.

She gulped and closed her eyes. Her foot hit the brake at the same time Jackson set the emergency brake and reached to her side to turn the wheel around full force, making the car spin around once, mowing down the two bikers, one on each wall.

The alley could fit the  _width_  of a car and two bikers, but not the  _length_  of a car and two bikers. One of them had to go. That was brilliant. But there was no time to rave about the trick as the two motorbikes flew away, landing on the ground with a deafening sound.

Bora screamed and covered her face with her hands.

She peeked between her fingers and her heart jumped at the sight of one biker holding firm onto the car’s hood, gun in hand as her car continued its momentum and bypassed a garbage disposal. The biker hit the metallic bin head-on, and landed on the ground, several feet in front of them.

Bora shrieked again as their car came to a screeching halt. Her seatbelt dug in her shoulder and her head hit back the headrest violently. She accidentally bit her tongue and the tang of blood filled her senses.

She came back to her senses just in time to see the biker weakly trying to get up and pulling his gun out, aiming at her. She caught his gaze and there was no doubt left in her mind that  _she_  was the target. She screeched as the first bullet hit the windshield and they both bent down.

“Put the car into reverse!” Jackson shouted.

She followed his commands with trembling hands. The car reversed along the narrow lane and the biker kept on shooting at them, desperately emptying his barrel. She hit the gas pedal and they backed away until they reached a passing place and Bora turned the wheel again. They were in a new street.

Bora quickly put the car in first and hurtled off. The maze of streets was dizzying. She turned for what felt like hours until she got into a wider street and finally made it back to the city.

Her heartbeat was still racing as she wove between the cars with renewed speed, not caring about the limitations now that she’d had a taste of what awaited her behind.

One hour ago, she never even had if only a parking ticket and now she had engaged herself in a car chase, running over one biker and mowing down two others.

Speaking of which.

“Weren’t there five of them?” She asked Jackson, breathing hard. She met his eyes and they looked back at the same time. Two motorbikes were following them.

“Okay.” Bora said before she could let panic seep in. “I… have a plan.”

Her plan came in the form of an immense underground parking and she eased the car through the parking structure.

“You don’t look like you have a plan.” Jackson stated flatly as Bora passed past the fifth floor, still going up.

She didn’t answer him, too focused on easing her vehicle up the spiraling way. She reached the last floor and killed the engine before stepping out. She ran to the wall in front of the car frantically looking around.

“What are we looking at?” Came Jackson’s nonchalant voice from behind.

She turned to see him leaning against the hood of the car, arms crossed over the chest. She pointed towards the wall. “There was a door. Right there. I swear it!”

He sighed and leaned off the wall. “Talk about a plan.”

At the same time the noise of engines reached them from a few floors below. They had anything between ten to thirty seconds before they were trapped.

She watched as Jackson walked to a fire hose set on the wall and unrolled it before throwing it over the railing.

“We need to leave! There’s no fire! What are you doing?” She yelled furiously running up to him before grabbing his arm.

He got out of her hold and yanked her by the arm before walking her to the railing. Her stomach twisted and she started struggling against his hold. Her brain put two plus two together, and…

“What the hell, Wang?” She shook her head. “No way am I jumping. If you want to jump, go ahead and have a blast doing it, I’m not stopping you. But  _I_ ’d rather keep my two feet fixed on the ground,  _thank you very much_.” She babbled, quoting him from their fight in the alley.

Ignoring Bora, he walked past the railing and headed for a locker located in a corner. He shoved her inside, but only after her eye caught the “danger sign” plastered on the door. Her eyes widened but before she could protest he followed her in and shut the door behind them.

She was trapped again.

The locker was full of wires and cables. It was an electrical panel. One move the wrong way and they both could turn into fried chicken wings in seconds. The familiar shortness of breath came. Now wasn’t the time to panic. She shut her eyes and focused on her breathing. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. She did her breathing exercises and, when she trusted herself to keep her emotions in check, she opened her eyes. Jackson was observing her intently.

The space was cramped and dark, their bodies pressed against one another, too close for comfort. Jackson was so tall, the top of her ponytail barely reached his shoulder. She dodged his intense gaze and got on the tip of her toes to watch what was going on through slits filtering in the parking’s artificial light.

The roaring of motorbikes echoed throughout the parking before skidding to a halt next to her car. The two bikers got down their vehicles and looked inside her Mazda. One of them noticed the hanging fire hose and went to look over the railing.

Did they think Bora and Jackson had jumped from up there?

The man cursed and punched the wall.

_Yep, they totally do._

Bora cringed back in surprise at the violence vibrating off of him.

They better not get caught now. Or any other time for that matter.

“Check the car.” The man near the railing said to the other one, pointing a finger towards him.

 _The box_. She palpated her pockets. Jackson put a finger on his lips and showed her the inside of his jacket pocket. She frowned at him. The last time she had checked, the box was in her back pocket, she hadn’t noticed he had stolen it again. She shot him a stern look, jaw locked but he wasn't looking at her.

“It’s not there. They took it.” Came the man’s response.

“Fucking hell.” The guy struck the railing and the sound echoed throughout the car park, making Bora’s heart jump. “Wasn’t there someone supposed to be watching that damn girl?”

Jackson looked down and met Bora’s eyes inquiringly. She shrugged and they looked back at the two agents.

“And the Wang boy was with her.” He carried on.

The other looked grim. “Do you think they’re going rogue?”

“They’ve gone rogue years ago, Park.” The other snickered.

Park looked serious as he frowned. “But they’ve never acted up like this before. We kept them in check.”

Jackson scoffed and Bora pinched his chest. He looked down at her and cocked an eyebrow at her boldness but she was too busy following the exchange to notice.

“I don’t know, Park. We need to go report to the Blue House. They’re going crazy back there. They’ll chop our bloody heads off if we tell them we lost them.”

With a last angry kick aimed at the fire hose the man got back on his motorbike. They put their helmets back on and drove off.

Bora and Jackson stayed in their position but the girl couldn’t wait a full minute before opening the locker door and bursting out of the confined space. She gulped in air, her chest heaving up and down. She whipped around and pointed an accusing finger Jackson’s way but couldn't muster the strength to speak.

“Well, that was close.” He just said, extracting his body from the locker.

“Close?” She growled. “They tried to kill us,” She threw her hands in the air. “They freaking shot at us. And you… Hey, where are you going?”

“Well unless you have a better idea, I suggest we get the hell out of here to begin with.” He said his back to her.

“I’m sorry, how does that require you breaking into a car again?”

Back facing her, Jackson was busy trying to force a black Honda’s lock with two long metal tools he’d retrieved from the locker.

“They know what our vehicle looks like. Besides, your car is too flashy.”

He grunted and finally opened the car, getting into the driver’s seat. He fumbled under the steering wheel for a few seconds and the engine came to life.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not leaving my car.”

He shrugged. “As you wish. I have what I want, now, haven’t I?”

Her heart jumped and she slowly uncrossed her arms as he lazily slid the infamous box out from beneath his jacket. He stared at her through the windshield with a smirk on the corner of his lips. He raised an eyebrow expectantly. He’d cornered her and he knew it.

She pointed a finger at him again. “You owe me some _serious_ explanations.”

He winked. “Saddle up.”

_Oh, boy._

She was in for a ride. Literally.


	8. Milkshake And Coke

If Bora had to describe her twenty-first birthday in three words, it would probably be as follows: Worst. Birthday. Ever. And she knew a thing or two about sucky birthdays. But that was a story for another day.

The blazing midday sun had reached its peak. The summer heat was burning through her black clothes and her outfit stuck on her body like a second skin.

After stealing a black Honda, Bora and Jackson had taken the freeway when Bora noticed the umpteenth sign indicating the direction they were heading for.

“I’m pretty sure Seoul is the opposite direction.” She remarked, turning her head to the driver.

Jackson didn’t bother replying. His arms were outstretched on the steering wheel and covered with a jacket. How he wasn’t melting on his seat from the heat was a wonder to Bora who was fanning herself despite the open windows letting in fresh puffs of air.

His fingers adorned several rings and intricate patterns swirled around his right hand’s fingers. Deep in thoughts, he hadn’t let out a peep since they had departed from the parking.

Bora gritted her teeth. She hated this. She hated not knowing. She hated being in the dark and feeling powerless. And she hated Jackson Wang for letting her in the dark. She was desperate for answers and above all, for a sense of familiarity. She wanted to talk to someone she knew.

Just as that thought formed in her head, her phone started vibrating. She started with surprise before taking out the device from her inner pocket. Her heart jumped when she saw the name on the screen.

_Woobin._

Just as she was about to answer, a tattooed hand wrapped around her cellphone, tearing it away from her.

“Hey!” She reached out to get her phone but Jackson was too fast. He glanced at the screen before opening his window and throwing the device away.

“What the hell?” She yelled. “That was my _phone_! First you abandon my car, I’m sorry it was too flashy for your liking, by the way. Then, you refuse to answer my questions and now this? Who do you think you are to pull off shit like that? And if you won’t answer, then tell me where the hell you’re taking me!”

“Nowhere really. I’m contemplating what to do with you.” He answered, unfazed by her previous words.

“Just take me home.”

Silence.

Then he said, “You don’t actually expect me to drive you back home, do you?”

“Why not?”

He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “Don’t you get it? These men back there will be scouting your place and won’t hesitate shooting you on-sight.”

“So, what? You expect me to follow the first stranger I meet? You don’t seem any better.” She spat, eyeing his tattoo suspiciously. “Are you involved in a gang?”

“If I wanted to harm you, you’d be dead and buried by now.”

She squinted her eyes. “And what tells me you don’t have any ulterior motives?”

“I always have ulterior motives,” He said seriously.

She grunted. “Just tell me what this is all about.”

“Your father vowed for you to never know anything about this.”

“I’m not a child!” She gritted out. “Besides, do you all expect me to just let it go, now? Would _you_ just let it slide if you were me?”

Jaw set, he didn’t reply, but she didn’t expect him to anyway.

She studied his profile. He’d taken off his cap and had dark short hair. And that black ink on his fingers fascinated her somehow. What on earth could he have to do with her father of all people?

“How do you know my father?”

“That’s a very good question, actually. Our fathers went to the army together.”

She squinted her eyes. “If they really did know each other, how come he’s never mentioned a Wang family before?”

He stayed silent again and she bit her tongue to refrain from cursing. “Do you always speak that much?”

“Only when I’m trying not to choke someone to death.”

She snorted in faux confidence and half worried. He _did_ look like he could easily wrap the seatbelt around her neck and choke her to death in a matter of seconds. She wiggled uncomfortably in her seat and wrapped her fingers around her belt which felt suffocating suddenly.

She didn’t try to squeeze more answers out of him. She felt it’d be useless. She tipped her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes.

* * *

 

 

She must have dozed off at some point because when she opened her eyes again the sun was setting and the car was stopped at what looked like a gas station.

She groggily opened her eyes and knit her eyebrows as the sunlight blinded her vision. She blinked a few times and when her eyes adjusted to the brightness she took in the sight. She was surrounded by mountains behind which the sun was preparing to set, a palette of orange shades extended before her eyes.

What she’d give for a brush and a little paint in that moment. It was the most beautiful sunset she’d ever witnessed.

She’d never travelled a lot, not even throughout Korea. But she still knew they had driven for a long time if there were mountains. This was the countryside, far away from the capital.

She looked around in search of her travel buddy and her eyes landed on his tall figure. He was at the station shop entrance and was on the phone. She slid out the car quietly and stretched her limbs before heading for his direction.

She came to a standstill when pieces of his conversation came to her. Her free hand rose to her throat and grabbed the necklace gifted to her by Woobin that she always wore. The heart-shaped pendant was stone cold.

“You have to be kidding me.” Jackson was saying, gritting his teeth. “I’m not a baby-sitter… Yes, in fact, she’s right next to me.”

She started with surprise. She didn’t think he’d heard her.

Looking at her in the eye, he held out the phone in her direction. “Your father.”

She took hesitant steps and raised the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

A sigh of relief came to her before her father’s gruff voice spoke. “ _Bora_. Oh, God. Are you okay?”

She clenched a fist. “W _hat the hell is going on._ ” She hissed.

Jackson cocked his head in her direction.

“I’m so sorry.”

She turned around and stepped away, ignoring Jackson’s intrusive stare. “Why? What did you do?”

“Listen… I can’t explain over the phone, it’s not safe.”

She knit her brows. “Safe? What – “

“Hate me all you want but stay with Jackson.”

“You want me to stay with _him_?” She widened her eyes and whipped around to stare Jackson down with disgust.

“Just do it, Bora. He’ll protect you.” He pleaded.

A bittersweet taste rolled from the back of her throat to her tongue as the familiar sensation of déjà-vu seized her brain. “Protect me from what?”

“Time’s up.”

Before she could hear her father’s answer, Jackson walked to her and yanked the phone away from her.

“What the hell?” She screeched.

“We’ll be at the HQ by tomorrow. Tell Mark and Bam.” He said into the receiving end of the phone.

He walked to a bin and threw the device away.

“What is it with you and phones?” She shouted. “I wasn’t done speaking to him.”

“We had a five-minute window before the call became traceable.” He explained. “Go wait in the car. I’ll go pay for the gas.”

He entered the station’s shop before she could reply.

“Like hell I will!” She bit back the lump that had formed in the back of throat and puffed up her cheeks before entering the tiny shop after Jackson, ignoring his command.

“Don’t patronize me!” She barked after him. He whipped around, ready to fire back and she almost ran into him.

“May I help you?” A lady, who Bora figured was the shop owner, appeared at the other end of the aisle they were stopped at, scrutinizing them with suspicion probably alerted by the ruckus.

She took an awkward step back from Jackson and flashed the lady a reassuring smile. “No, thank you.”

Jackson cast her a cold glance and went to the checkout counter before she furiously stomped out of the shop.

She was waiting in the passenger’s seat, arms crossed and fuming.

A few minutes later, Jackson came around to her side of the car and opened her door. Before she could say anything, he showed her the frozen spinach bag he was holding before shoving it on her lips. She hissed and tried to dodge his arm.

He tsked. “If we don’t take care of this now, the next shop owner we cross will think I kidnapped you after beating the shit out of you.”

Bora snorted. “Funny! We wouldn’t want them thinking that, right? Should’ve thought about that before punching me with all you had.” She snarled.

He growled and dropped the bag in her lap before walking away. Bora yelped at the coolness of it and bit back a curse.

_Headass._

“Where are we going, now?” She asked, dabbing her swollen lips with the frozen spinach.

Jackson fastened his seatbelt before answering. “We’ll meet your father in Busan, he’ll be waiting for us back there. He’ll tell you what you want to know.”

“And you can’t do that?”

“I don’t want to be the one picking up the pieces.”

She felt like vomiting. They drove in silence until the sun started setting. Too much silence Bora thought it would smother her. Her thoughts would tear her apart from the inside if the silence went on.

He didn’t want to be the one picking up the pieces, but she was already in pieces. She’d already been in pieces before, and she’d always done the picking up on her own. No one ever wanted to pick up the pieces. And, if they tried, she wouldn’t let them anyways. But she didn’t say that.

Instead, she turned on the radio and let pop music fill the car. Jackson eyed her from the corner of his eye but didn’t say anything. He took in her disheveled appearance. Ponytail hung low, hair messed up, blue-black bruises on her lips and cheekbone, eyes vacant, staring ahead while mindlessly biting her nails.

 _Torn_ , he thought. She looked torn.

* * *

 

At last, they stopped in a diner parking.

Bora looked around and creased her brows. “That’s not Busan.”

“I’d hope so.” He simply said before exiting the car.

She went after him. “Then why are we stopping?”

“To eat.”

“Wha…? No, no, no. You said we were going to Busan, we don’t have any time to lose!” She yelled, eyes wide at his retreating figure.

She sighed and followed him inside the diner. The restaurant was nearly empty except for a few people here and there. She was welcomed with her favorite smell. French fries. She almost drooled over the counter.

She grabbed Jackon’s arm. “I’m not hungry.” She assured, half-heartedly.

On cue, her stomach started grumbling. Traitor. Jackson just cast her a “ _yeah, right”_ look.

“How about this?” He said. “You eat, I talk. You want answers, right?”

“I thought you didn’t want to _pick up the pieces_.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. That’s just foreplay, if I may.” He smiled wickedly.

She studied him before turning to the waiter. “What’s on the menu?”

Jackson took a sit on the bar stool. “Now, that’s the spirit.”

* * *

 

 “Milkshake with fries and burger? That’s plain disgusting.” Bora wrinkled her nose at Jackson’s order.

“And what do _you_ drink to down your food, pray tell?”

She grabbed her drink. “Coke?”

“That’s gross.”

“ _You’re_ gross.” She shot back.

“Debatable.” Jackson fired.

“Not.”

He angled his body on the stool to be facing her. “You’re annoying.”

“Shut up and start talking.” She said, stuffing her mouth with a handful of fries.

“How can I start talking if I shut up?”

“You know what I meant.” She grabbed the salt on the counter and sprayed some on her fries and steak.

“You’ll die of heart failure if you go on.”

“That’s funny.” She frowned and cocked her head in his direction, salting her food more than necessary for good measure. “I don’t remember asking for your opinion.”

He chuckled and downed a sip from his drink. “Cheeky.”

She swallowed a fry and started cutting her steak.

“So,” She started. “Our fathers went to the army together, right?”

“Hm.”

“They’re still in touch?”

“Hm.”

Bora let her fork and knife fall on her plate with a loud clang. “If we’re gonna keep doing this, you’ll have to give me more than one-word sentences. Be more specific. I know they went to the army together, tell me when shit hit the fan.”

He swallowed the meat he was chewing before taking another bite. “Our fathers were assigned a mission.” He said, mouth full. “And it turned out very, very badly. So, they wanted out of it.”

“But?” She pressed.

“There’s no but. They did. That’s what went wrong. They got out of it, they came up with a plan for the government to let them go. And they stumbled upon the Cave of Wonders doing it. But in addition to getting the genie’s lamp, they hit the ultimate jackpot. They found Korea’s dirtiest laundry. And this,” he slipped something out of his inner pocket and put it on the counter between them. The box. “contains all of their findings. If it ever were to be out in the open or in the wrong hands, it could cause great… damage.”

“To whom?”

“Me, you, your father… the country.”

“You’re talking about a scandal? Like a… presidential scandal?”

He snorted. “I’m talking about war. The intel inside that box could not only overthrow the establishment in place but start a war along with it.”


	9. First Elimination

Bora burst out in a nervous fit of laughter. She didn’t want to. But that’s how her mind decided to process this situation. Laughing.

Well, it could’ve been worse. She could’ve gone off the deep end, and started throwing random objects all over the place, or better still, she could’ve slapped Jackson Wang’s too perfect face for feeding her bullshit. As she’d tried to make sense of the jumble of thoughts in her head, a smile had curled her lips and she’d started laughing out loud, much to Jackson’s dismay.

She raised her eyebrows and held her hands out. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Geez, you couldn’t crack a smile to save your life, could you?”

“You think this is a joke?” He growled.

She scrunched her face at him in mock apology. “I’m sorry, I’m having a hard time processing all the overthrowing the establishment and world domination stuff, is all. But, please, go on.”

She was about to put her drink back to her lips when Jackson curled a fist over the counter and wrapped his other hand around a foot of her stool, pulling her to him brusquely.

The stool made a screeching noise against the tile floor until their faces were mere inches away from one another. Bora gasped as her drink spilt a bit over the rim of the glass.

“You know what I think?” He said, voice deep and slow, like honey poured from a jar and Bora’s breath hitched in her throat. “I think you’re not taking this nearly as seriously as you should.”

He smiled coldly. “But deep down, you know something’s up. That’s why you’re here. So, drop the act with me. Won’t get you anywhere.”

Never breaking eye contact, Jackson slid the box to her and she ripped the Kraft paper off under his scrutinizing gaze, revealing a black hard drive smooth with a USB port.

“Your father, mine and Mark’s gathered all the dirt they found on this. Made copies. Hid them. And blackmailed the president with it. Threatened to leak the contents to the world if the president’s secret services didn’t… cooperate.”

“Cooperate?” Her heartbeat picked up. “What did they find? And what did they want in exchange?”

“You know, I’ve heard a lot about you.” He said, an arm draped over her the back of her stool and the other fiddling with his milkshake

Her gaze was fixed on the hard drive in her hands and he tilted his head to be eye-level with her. “Lee Hyun Suk’s golden girl.”

She held her head high and locked gazes with him. His dark eyes glinted with something undecipherable and it took all of her will not to squirm in her chair and keep a straight front.

“Do you know how hard your father tried to keep you away from all this? I couldn’t just throw all of his efforts to waste now, could I?”

“I’d say you threw his efforts down the drain when you decided to pay him a visit.” She retorted, holding his stare defiantly.

From what she’d picked up from her father and Jackson’s conversation, the latter had never come in person to their house. And her father didn’t want him to. For this exact reason. To avoid her ever being put in that position, asking uncomfortable questions.

He paused long enough to register what she’d said.

Realization hit him and he frowned. “Don’t you know eavesdropping is a sin?”

“It’s not.”

“It is, in my book.”

“And stealing cars is perfectly normal, so I’d suggest reflecting on the legitimacy of your book. Who’s Mark?” She changed subjects.

“One of us.”

Bora scoffed. “Who’s ‘us’?”

There was her and there were the others. Period.

“The Children of The Blessed.”

A silence.

“Are you shitting me, right now?”

“Our fathers were -- are the most powerful men of this country. I guess you could call them blessed.” He paused and put a fry in his mouth. “Unlike Mark and I,  _you_  didn’t experience growing up into your father’s business. And yet here you are, trying to ruin your life by unburying dirty secrets.” He sighed. “Like mother like daughter, I guess.”

“What does that mean?” Bora narrowed her eyes.

Before Jackson could dodge her question as she suspected he was about to, they were cut off by a looming presence before someone cleared their throat to catch their attention.

They looked up to see the barman-waiter in front of them.

In his early-forties, he had salt and pepper hair. The corners of his eyes were creased by time and moved in time as he spoke.

“From the lady over there.” The man slid a glass in front of Jackson, giving him an insistent look that could roughly be translated to a vulgar ‘ _well done, stud’_.

They both turned to look at the other end of the bar to see a woman, legs crossed and sitting on stool. In her mid-twenties with short auburn hair and heavy makeup, she smiled at them.

Scratch that.

Smiled at  _Jackson_.

Bora snorted.  _Bold_.

She fixed her gaze back on Jackson. “So, you were saying…?”

He stood up, not sparing Bora a second glance. “If you’ll excuse me.”

Her eyes grew wide. “ _Are you serious?_ You come back right this instant!” She hissed through clenched teeth, but he was already gone.

He didn’t forget to take the hard drive with him, though.

“Unbelievable.” She muttered under her breath and huffed.

He still didn’t trust her. Not like she trusted him anyways.

She took the glass the woman had sent over and took a sip to ease her nerves. She gagged as the strong liquid burned her throat.

 _Alcohol_.

She may not have been used to drinking alcohol but this drink had the foulest after taste ever.

She stuck out her tongue and tried to get rid of the lingering taste, scraping at her tongue. She shivered uncontrollably and went back to watching Jackson and the woman from a distance.

They were talking, and Jackson had his back to Bora. He suddenly reached up and rested a hand on the woman’s cheek, stroking her cheek with his thumb. The woman smiled seductively before lowering her gaze. Bora rolled her eyes.

A  _Don Juan._

She filed that for future reference.

She couldn’t believe him. They were on the run and he somehow made time to flirt.

She began feeling weird. She stood up from her stool and made her way to the washroom, not looking back.

 

* * *

 

Jackson Wang was no idiot.

He sniffed the drink and instantly recognized the strong smell of the most basic poison in existence.

He could recognize the poison from miles away. He’d been trained to do so. If anything, he was offended someone would think him incompetent enough not to recognize it.

“So, you were saying?” Bora turned back.

“If you’ll excuse me.” Jackson replied.

She muttered something he didn’t manage to catch.

He walked to the woman and leaned on the counter next to her.

“Not smooth.” He said, off-the-cuff.

“Thought I’d lend a helping hand.” She replied looking past his shoulder. “She doesn’t seem really… fun.”

He turned back to see Bora grimacing at something, tongue hanging out of her mouth.

That fool.

He quirked an eyebrow and looked back at the girl. “But you are?”

“Why don’t I show you instead?”

Admittedly, she was easy on the eye. Were it under any other circumstances, he’d try having his way with her that night.

Too bad she was trouble.

He smirked at her and raised a hand to her cheek, stroking her lightly.

She smiled and looked down. He ran his thumb along her jaw until he reached her chin and forced her head up, whilst applying pressure on a certain lethal spot of her neck with his hand. Her eyes grew wide but she didn’t move.

_Smart girl._

“You thought I wouldn’t recognize it?” He growled quietly.

“W-What are you talking about?”

He slightly pressed on her neck.

“Okay, okay, okay.” She whispered. He released some of the pressure.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know anything.”

Jackson’s eyes darkened.

“I don’t know them, nor do I have anything to do with them. I swear it.” She added in a single breath. “Someone came up to me and told me to do this.”

“Why?”

She told him to look behind with a jerk of the head.

He turned around. Bora was gone.

 

* * *

 

The washroom’s lighting was bright and harsh on the eye.

Bora rested her elbows on the cold and wet marble lining the sinks and put her head in her hands. Her heartbeat accelerated and she started feeling dizzy. She sprayed water on her face and pinched her cheeks.

When she raised her head back up, she saw a silhouette standing behind her in the mirror. She jumped in surprise and before she could do anything else a man had a hand on her mouth to muffle her screams.

She thrashed and reared back, folding her legs, pushing all of her weight down on the man. His hold loosened enough for her to wiggle an arm out and kick him in the face with her elbow, almost dislocating her arm in the process from the odd angle. Pain shot up her shoulder and she grunted.

The male groaned and tripped back into a stall.

She had a half-second top to decide what her next move should be.

He was strong. Much stronger than her. She’d better run.

She didn’t wait for him to get back to his senses before she opened the door frantically.

To be met with none other than Jackson on the other side, about to enter the washroom.

As soon as he saw her, he let out a loud sigh and was about to say something when his eyes were attracted by something behind Bora. She turned back just in time to see the man stumbling out the stall, a bruise already forming on his cheekbone and blood trickling from his nose to his stubble.

She’d aimed  _just right_.

“You, bitch! I’ll make you pay for this.” He growled before pulling a gun from underneath his jacket.

Jackson grabbed Bora’s arm and hauled her away. He closed the door and pushed her against the wall next to the door.

Bullet holes pierced the door and ended their way on the wall opposite them. Her ears burned from the ear-splitting noise produced by the gun.

“First day in the business and already making enemies, I see.” Jackson sniggered.

Screams could be heard in the restaurant’s main room as well as hurried footsteps of people running for cover, out of the diner.

Jackson grabbed a chair and blocked the doorknob before grabbing her hand and leading her to God knew where.

“We need to get out of here. How on Earth did they find us?” Bora heard Jackson say from afar, as if he was on the other end of a tunnel.

She wasn’t feeling well. She was dizzy and couldn’t keep up. Jackson was practically dragging her along. She already felt unwell in the washroom and the fight had exerted her even more.

“Wang. I can’t… I don’t know… What’s wrong… My body...”

She couldn’t even speak proper sentences and on cue, a splitting pain tore through her chest making her stop dead in her tracks, and bend over. She groaned and beads of sweat formed on her forehead. Jackson took both her cheeks in his hands and forced her heavy eyelids open.

“You fool. You drank the glass.” He growled. “There’s a specific reason I didn’t drink it! Shit, we need to leave before they call backup. We’ll be screwed, then.”

He swept her off her feet and she felt on a rollercoaster, she couldn’t tell where was the ceiling and where was the floor.

“Fuck, Wang. Do you want to die?” She threatened for him to put her down. But what was a threat in her head sounded more like a load of mumbo jumbo to Jackson’s ears.

Her head hung back over his arm and she could see the chair blocking the washroom’s doorknob shaking as someone administrated kicks.

“Of all moments…” Jackson bit his tongue to refrain his words. He laid her under the counter. “You’re lucky it’s a basic poison, the effects are short-term. Just stay here.” He shoved a plastic bottle in her chest. “And drink this.”

She clasped her hands around the bottle of water like a lifeline. As Bora gulped down the content of the bottle, a loud  _bang_  resonated from the hallway leading to the washroom as the man they’d locked up broke the door open.

His eyes filled with murderous rage as he saw Bora and he was fast approaching, ready to fire his gun.

Jackson was hiding on the corner and as soon as the man reached his position, he kicked his gun away with a swift motion of the leg. The man was taken by surprise and Jackson had the upper hand.

Everything unfolded in seconds.

Bora could only watch from her spot under the bar, helpless.

Jackson grabbed a glass bottle and crushed it on the man’s skull. Bits of glass sprinkled the room. He stabbed the man in the neck with the jagged end of the bottle. The man gurgled and tried to reach for Jackson but he kept his assailant in a headlock. Jackson’s whole body locked up and he clenched his jaw.

Bora heard a loud  _snap_  as the man’s limbs went limp and his eyes lolled back in his head. A scream echoed and she didn’t realize it came from her until Jackson bore his eyes into hers. Bora had a hand covering her mouth and they stared at each other, gazes locked.

A crease formed between his eyebrows. He let the  _corpse_  hit the ground and made a step in her direction, glass crinkling under his feet, and she backed away, almost in a knee-jerk reaction.

Something flashed in his eyes and his steps faltered. A split second later he was tackled to the ground by a heavy body.

They struggled on the ground before the man grabbed Jackson by the collar of his shirt and plastered him on the wall, his head banging against the concrete wall. Jackson closed his eyes and locked his jaw. He wrapped his arms around the guy’s torso and pushed him back until Bora heard them hit a table, out of her sight.

She finished the water and stood up to follow the fight from her vantage point behind the bar.

The diner was empty of people who had fled probably as soon as they’d heard a gun going off a few minutes back. Tables were flipped in Jackson and his opponent’s wake.

And there they were. Jackson and the black-haired guy were in the middle of a hand-to-knife combat.

Jackson managed to dodge each of the man’s attempts at slicing him straight through the stomach, and she felt her heart jump each time.

They stumbled back through a double door leading to the kitchen.

And Bora was quick to follow them, the effects of the poison already wearing off. She gulped and tried not to look at the lifeless body she had to step over. Did that make her heartless? She didn’t let herself ponder over it as she heard a grunt of pain, and not just anyone’s – Jackson’s – coming from the kitchen.

She treaded carefully towards the room. The smell of oil and junk food instantly hit her nostrils as a wave of heat wrapped around her. The stoves were still up and running, the cooks having left in a rush.

 An island stood in the middle of the kitchen and behind it, Jackson was being pressed against the tiled wall. The other guy had his knife a few inches away from Jackson’s chin. The latter had a pale complexion, and was struggling to block off the knife the best he could. His arms flexed and muscles tensed as he gritted his teeth.

She grabbed a frying pan abandoned on one of the many kitchen counters and held it over her shoulder like a tennis racket. Her hands were clammy around the handle and her heart pumping blood to her organs at a fast rate. Adrenaline coursed through her veins.

Bora was just a few feet behind the two men, approaching on the tip of her toes and the saucepan raised above her head, waiting for her moment to strike. It was do or die.

The man clad in black spoke. “We’re not here for you tonight, kid. Come on, don’t be difficult, just hand us that bitch over.”

There.

She had it.

Her moment.

“I’m not a piece of property, you jerk.”

Jackson’s eyes diverted in her direction, a confused look crossing his face, and before he fully registered what she was about to do, she lowered her arm and smashed the frying pan on the dimwit’s skull.

A loud  _bang_  resonated and echoed before a heavy silence filled the room.

The man fell to his knees like a rag doll.

“ _And watch your damn language_.” She struck again, knocking him out cold.

 


	10. Love Motel

A clang bounced around the kitchen’s walls as Bora dropped the frying pan on the ground. A long silence followed suit, only punctuated by Bora and Jackson’s pants.

The girl crouched down next to the motionless body sprawled on his side on the floor. A bump was already forming on his temple, from when she’d struck the second time. He was out but still breathing.

She let out a relieved sigh and held her head in her hands. She gulped down the uneasy feeling growing inside her and looked up at Jackson who was leaning against the wall, a hand pressed over his stomach. The fabric of his shirt was drenched with blood or sweat. Or both.

“You okay?” She asked.

“Yeah. Nothing I can’t patch up.”

Her eyes ran from his face, to his hands and back up to his face.

Images of him breaking the man’s spine flashed before her eyes and the loud snap reverberated in her ears. As though, he knew what she was thinking, he dropped his eyes to her and held her stare. She repressed a shiver and averted his gaze.

“You?” He added as she pretended examining the still body.

“I’m fine.” She replied, ignoring the sting of pain in her shoulder.

She rummaged through the man’s pockets, and opened a leather covered wallet.

_Agent Hoo Seon Min._

Bora widened her eyes. “Did I just knock out a policeman?”

Jackson shook his head and ran a hand through his dark locks. “They’re over the police. These men are at the president’s beck and call. They probably think you got your hands on the black box’s contents.”

He let the tip of his tongue play with his lip bites piercing, deep in thoughts.

 “Because they don’t know what you might decide to do with your findings, they’re scared shitless. Which gives us the upper hand in this fight.”

“Great.” Bora replied sardonically.

Who cared her life was in danger if they had the upper hand, right? 

“What should we do, then?”

“Look. You seem to have a gift of attracting all kinds of trouble your way. And I, as much as your father would like me to, am _not_ your bodyguard. Which is why the faster we get to the Headquarters, the faster you’ll get to a safe place. In the meantime…” He looked at the ID. “I say we kill him.”

Was this even real?

“First, I am very much capable of protecting myself. Don’t think yourself too vital.” She spat. “And second, _what is wrong with you_?” She stomped a foot on the ground. “Normal human beings don’t go around killing other human beings for heaven’s sake!”

* * *

 

Yet again, Jackson got to show off his amazing auto theft skills – His words.

They’d let the man live after Bora scolded Jackson like a child caught red-handed stealing cookies from the jar by his mother.

They were riding a bright red and freshly stolen motorcycle, driving up the highway and away from the mess they’d shamelessly left behind. Helmets didn’t come in the package — bummer— and Bora squeezed Jackson’s torso in a death grip. He was the only thing preventing her from flying away and crushing her skull on the concrete.

A few minutes into the ride, she loosened up a bit and started enjoying the breeze on her skin. She let herself immerge in the scenery of the sun dipping over the horizon, a broad paintbrush of rich orange in the purplish sky.

By the time they reached the city of Yongju, halfway between Seoul and Busan, the sun had set and the night was pitch black. Bora realized she’d visited more of Korea these past 24 hours than any other times of her life combined.

They zigzagged in the town center, in narrow streets with brightly lit shop fronts and night restaurants and finally rolled to a stop in an alley between two buildings.

“Why’d you stop?” Bora asked over his shoulder.

Jackson killed the engine and got off the motorcycle. He jerked his chin behind her.

A façade with flashy neon lights and a bright pink “MOTEL” sign stood at the other end of the alley across the street. Any other time she would’ve brushed it off as a mundane bedding service.

But Bora’s attention was drawn to the darkened windows and the dirty-string curtain over the driveway entrance.

“What the heck.” Bora said.

A love motel.

The go-to place for couples to have romantic one-on-ones, and though it wasn’t exactly a brothel, it was common knowledge that love motels were a prostitute’s playground.

Bora crossed her arms. “I’ve never put a foot in a love motel before, I’m not starting today.”

“There’s a lot of things you’ve never done before and are starting today. It’s cheap and clean. Come on.” Jackson frowned in annoyance, and grabbed her wrist. He stopped abruptly and scanned her from head to toe.

She was wearing a black sleeveless vest and a black t-shirt underneath complete with black pants and sneakers.

“Woah, hands up! What do you think you’re doing?” She yelled when he brought his hand up the zipper of her vest.

He opened his palms up. “We need to be credible. If you walk in there looking like _that_ , he won’t even give us directions, let alone rent us a room.”

“Looking like what?”

“Like you’ve been run over by a truck.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and held her head high, trying to keep her composure.

She gave his disheveled appearance a once over.

“What about you?”

“All kinds of pigs come in there. What matters most in this business is the girls. _”_ He said like it was a universal law of the universe.

“Are you some kind of pimp?” She asked sincerely.

Jackson gave her dumfounded look.

“Just asking!” She threw her arms in the air. “All right, all right! Turn around.”

Jackson sighed obnoxiously and muttered something under his breath as he turned around slowly.

She unzipped her vest and tucked the hem of her shirt inside her high waisted dark jeans. She pulled her neckline down and propped her breasts up in her bra to reveal some cleavage.

She had been gifted some assets after all, and if they could come in handy, she wouldn’t think twice about using them. But still.

She took off her vest and hung it over a shoulder with a finger.

“I feel like a prostitute, right now.” She mumbled her thoughts out loud, dusting her pants with her free hand.

“Good.” Jackson turned around.

He raised an eyebrow and gave her a once over. “Very good.”

“Eyes up.” Bora growled.

He sneered and lifted her chin up to expose her bruised cheek and lips. “But your face…” He grimaced.

She swatted his hand away before removing her hair tie. She dipped her head upside down and ruffled her hair to add volume. She raised her head back up and let her brown locks fall loose around her shoulders.

“Better?” She raised an eyebrow challengingly.

He adjusted some locks to cover her bruised side and she tried not to flinch.

The ghost of a smile hovered over Jackson’s pierced lips. “Much better.”

“And now…” He wrapped an arm over her waist and pulled her to his side, to the girl’s dismay.

“What?” He said when she gave him a look. “Did you think you’d walk in there all scowls and glares?

“You want me to play harlot?” She gaped.

“I have to play your client, don’t act like you’re the only victim there.”

She tried not to take offense.

“Why can’t we pretend we’re dating?”

Jackson eyed her. “You didn’t come off as the type to do romance.”

“I’ve been told I’m a decent actress.”

* * *

Bora and Jackson walked inside the love motel, his arm slung over her shoulders and her arms wrapped around his waist.

When they stopped at the front desk and the man at the reception started staring at her bruises for too long, – among other places – she nuzzled her nose in Jackson’s neck and let her lips hover over his skin.

“This was a bad idea.” She whispered in his ear.

Jackson stroke her hair and the man interrupted.

“How long?”

Rooms were usually rented by the hour.

“All night.” Jackson replied, stretching out each syllable, and she gagged inwardly.

If he thought she’d let it slide, he thought wrong and she made sure to let him know by sliding a hand under his shirt and pinching his skin.

Jackson bit his tongue and smiled down at her.

“Easy, hot stuff.” He gritted out.

She smiled sweetly and went back to nursing his neck, acting all hot and bothered.

“Just hurry.” She whined.

Jackson and the man did their transactions. He grabbed a key and pulled her to a hallway. He pinned her to a wall and his lips caressed her ear.

“Cameras.” He whispered, and the coolness of his lip piercing sent yet another round of shivers crawling down her nape. Damn. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it.”

He gave her a penetrating look that meant “ _behave_ ”.

She let him lead her to their floor. Their steps were muffled by the carpeting.

As Jackson unlocked their door, she wrapped her arms around his torso. She got on the tip of her toes to reach his ear and he stopped mid-movement. She opened her mouth and whispered, “Don’t get ahead of yourself, I was imagining Lee Jong Suk.”

* * *

 

Despite the motel’s shady nature, the place was pretty nice and neat to stay in.

There was a single room from which two hallways branched out. One led to an outdoor-balcony area and another to a bathroom.

In the middle of the room they were standing in, stood a tree with a thin trunk planted in a pot and a few green leaves reaching the ceiling. The walls and the floor were woodened and there was a jacuzzi big enough to fit two persons in as well as a king size mattress on the floor.

By the time she’d finished taking everything in, Jackson had come back from the balcony where he’d probably been assessing the place. She didn’t really care at that point.

“Everything’s good.” Jackson informed her.

She didn’t know why he bothered, to be honest.

All the thoughts she’d been pushing in the back of her head came crashing into her in waves. She squatted down and put her head in her hands, a habit she had when she felt like her brain would implode. 

“There’s a shower.” He added.

“I don’t have clothes.”

“I’ll fetch some.” He replied.

Bora stood up. “Won’t it look suspicious?”

“The balcony gives on the shopping street. I can go in and out without being seen.”

She nodded in understanding. She watched him open the balcony’s glass door and suddenly thought of something.

“Wait, what are you going to get?”

“Clothes?” He frowned.

“Can you get me…”

She stopped herself, debating on whether she should ask him. She didn’t know him, he wasn’t Woobin, he –

“What?”

Oh, to hell with it.

“Tampons.”

“Tampons?”

She ignored her cheeks burning and held his stare. It was her last day of period; but still. She was a woman and this was nature, if his masculinity was too fragile to handle it, it wasn’t her problem.

“Yeah, tampons. You know, the thing women –”

“I know what tampons are.” He snarled.

“Great, then go.” She said awkwardly.

He snorted and leaped over the balcony railing. He turned around to glance one last time at her before disappearing behind the banister. She ran to the edge and craned her neck to follow his movements.

He was jumping from balcony to balcony until he stepped foot on the ground. Bora watched until he disappeared in the crowd.

Once she got back inside the room, Bora immediately jumped in the shower.

She felt exhausted. Not only physically, but also psychologically. Her legs felt like noodles and tears slowly started escaping her eyes. She didn’t want to, but her body forced her into it. Her own twisted way of coping.

She sat in the shower for what felt like hours and cried her heart out.

* * *

 

Shameless. Truly, sincerely shameless.

That was what Bora was.

Jackson was in the feminine products section of a convenience store in the street down their motel and trying his hardest not to send death glares in the direction of anyone who dared stare a second too long his way as he navigated the tampons section.

He grabbed the first brand he saw and quickly headed for the cashier. He exited the shop, shoulder hunched and his cap on his head.

A few minutes later, he was done shopping. He put the plastic bags around his shoulders and climbed back to their balcony stealthily. He skirted around the garden chairs on the tiny outdoor space and opened the glazed door before coming to a halt in the hallway leading to the bathroom.

The water was running in the bathroom but there was something else. He stuck his ear on the wooden door.

Sniffling and crying.

He relaxed and sighed quietly as he realized they weren’t cries of pain. At least, not the kind of pain that would require him barging into the bathroom.

He slid his body on the ground next to the bathroom door. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes as he listened to Bora crying.

Jackson couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. He had grown into this ruthless world, and he sometimes forgot what it meant to be a normal person.

Bora was that.

Normal.

Crying was a fragment of normalcy, a practice he hadn’t indulged himself in for years. He’d grown through his father’s brutal training to make him a fighter. To make him fearless. He started biting the bullet at a young age.

Bora was a newborn in this world, she’d cry a lot, but she would come to terms with her new condition, eventually. She would have to bite the bullet. Just like he did, like Mark did and many more did.

He’d thought a lot about Lee Hyun Suk’s daughter and envied her for being so clueless about her father’s world. He wished his own father would have decided to keep him in the dark as well. And here she was, throwing _his_ own wish to the trash.

A bittersweet taste rolled from the back to the tip of his tongue. He felt sorry that she had to join their world but at the same time, he was jealous she’d got to spend so much of her life _normally_.

No training. No mission. No nothing.

Minutes passed. And he let her cry her heart out.

After a while, he heard her turn the tap off. He stood up and went back to the balcony to enter again, purposefully making noise this time around, to announce his presence.

* * *

 

Jackson exited the shower a while later, droplets of water dripping down his nape. He was drying his hair with a clean towel. He wore a tank top, and sweatpants. Bora sat on the wooden floor, hair damp and her back against the frail tree trunk. She was in her new set of clothes and staring at the black hard drive intently as though it was a mathematics problem she needed to solve. She was deep in thoughts when he pulled something from his waistband before interrupting her train of thoughts.

“Meet your new best friend.” He said. “Celeste.”

Bora was still absorbed in her staring.

“Celeste?” She said, confusion crumpling her face as she glanced up at him.

He squatted down in front of her. He took a small dagger out of its sheath with a cutting sound. The light of the room reflected on the silver blade and vines leaves were carved on the wooden handle.

“Small but sharp.” He said, gazing intensely at her.

She felt as though there was a double meaning to his words that she didn’t catch. Or maybe it was just her imagination.

He took the hard drive away from her hands and replaced it with the blade.

“You give names to your knives?” She said slightly amused.

“Bambam does. He has…” He stopped and frowned to think of his next words. “This thing with nicknames.”

Bambam. Mark. He constantly brought up all kinds of names but never hinted at their relationships as if she was supposed to know who these people were. Overall, he was _frustrating_.

“All of your names don’t sound Korean at all. Jackson? Mark? _Bambam_?”

“They’re nicknames.” He shrugged.

“What’s _your_ real name?” She asked curiously.

A smile curled up one side of his lips but he didn’t answer.

“You all are a crazy bunch.” Bora said.

“Believe me, I know.” He sneered.

“And why are you like that suddenly?”

“Like what?”

“Like… You didn’t tell me one hurtful thing in the past 5 minutes.”

He flicked her forehead. “No worries, I still think you’re annoying.”

“Ow!” She scowled.

“Now, onto the serious stuff.” He carried on. “I picked these pants because there’s a pocket hidden inside.” He patted the side of her left thigh, indicating her the spot. He was wearing a tank top, showing off the black ink curling up his arm to his shoulder but Bora purposefully avoided looking at it.

“It’s not noticeable and it should be enough to fit Celeste inside.”

She tucked Celeste in the spot he indicated under his scrutinizing gaze.

When she looked up, he put something else in her palm. She opened it and there was a crumpled piece of paper with a series of numbers written in a clean handwriting. She couldn’t help but point out to herself how messy her own handwriting was in comparison.

“Look at this number. Memorize it. If something happens, this will be your lifeline. And destroy this paper as soon as you got it, all right?”

She nodded and opened her mouth but no sound came out. She wanted to thank him for what he was doing for her. He obviously didn’t want to be here, but he still was anyway.

He broke her stare and stood up. “All right, now go to sleep.”

She stood up awkwardly. Her legs were stiff from the position she’d kept on the ground. She went to the king-sized bed and took out the bedsheets before heading for the jacuzzi.

“You can take the bed.” She said.

“I wasn’t planning on giving it to you.” Jackson replied, still planted under the tree.

Of course not. Bora couldn’t say she was surprised.

She scoffed and padded the bottom of the bath with the blankets before sitting and resting her back on the leather thing, legs crossed.

“Lay down.” Jackson ordered, arms crossed over his chest and towering over her jacuzzi.

Bora craned her neck in his direction. “You really think I’m going to fall asleep with you in the same room?” She tsked. “Just sleep, I’ll stand guard.” She dismissed him with a wave of her hand.

“That’s reassuring.” He mocked under his breath.

“I heard that.”


	11. Wanted

Bora exhaled sharply and rubbed her chest. The clock hung over the door of the motel room ticked the seconds away as midnight approached. Her birthday would be over in a few minutes.

Legs crossed, she was repeating in her head the number Jackson had given her again and again like a nursery rhyme. She’d created a story out of the digits to remember them with clarity when the moment would come.

Droplets of water from the still wet ends of her brown hair dripped onto her lap. She repeated the number like a mantra until it was embedded inside her brain.

Her hand went from her chest to her neck to grab onto her necklace but only found bare skin. She touched her neck with a jerk as her heartbeat picked up. It couldn’t be.

“No, no, no…” She whispered as her fingers scraped the floor in search of the necklace with a heart-shaped pendant Woobin had gifted her.

She got up from the floorboard she was sitting on and started searching the rest of the room and then proceeded to the bathroom, to no avail. She even went to the balcony. She slid the glass door open and a light fresh summer breeze filtered inside, caressing her legs. Her steps faltered on the threshold.

The only thing on the tiny outdoor space was Jackson, leaning over the railing and looking out to the horizon, his back to her. She didn’t expect the dense cloud of smoke surrounding him. She would definitely try to paint the striking contrast of his dark silhouette against the colorful street signs overhead.

She almost forgot why she came here in the first place. She did a quick scan of the floor hopelessly. Bora let out a frustrated sigh at the nagging feeling tittering her. She knew where the necklace was. The taunting thought at the back of her head knew too.

In the diner’s restroom where the man had attacked her and almost strangled her and where the police was probably investigating the scene at the same instant.

She stroked her taut neck muscles and looked up to the sky. She exhaled loudly in defeat and peered over to Jackson who hadn’t moved an inch since she’d joined him. Part of her felt insulted by his idleness, that he didn’t consider her enough of a threat to even glance her way.

“You don’t happen to have seen a necklace around here?” She asked, annoyed.

He furrowed his brows and glanced back at her as though he was just noticing her presence. She knew better though. He'd probably sensed her presence from the moment she'd gotten up.

“It was a gift from Woobin. It has a heart-shaped pendant.”

He shook his head and took a long drag off his cigarette. He turned his body around to face her and rested his elbows back on the railing. He studied her with ever dark eyes and suddenly she felt self-conscious.

She felt exposed, not knowing what to make of her arms. So, she walked next to him and wrapped her fingers around the cool metal. Her heartbeat was erratic ever since the earlier fight. She inhaled and exhaled sharply while looking over the railing to chase away her thoughts. Even at this late hour, there were still people coming and going in the street below, she noticed.

“Still dizzy?” Came Jackson’s voice on her right. He’d been watching her every move with attention.

She rubbed the spot on her chest. “No. It’s the chest pains.”

“What chest pains?”

She shrugged. “From the toxin, I think. It must be a side effect.”

“There are no such side-effects from this particular poison. It’s a benign chemical that’s not meant to do a lot of harm. Think of it as pepper spray.”

“Pepper spray doesn’t give chest pains, Wang.” She pointed out.

“That’s my point. And stop calling me Wang.”

“Well, I’m fine. Everyone doesn’t react the same way.” She argued.

“Maybe.” He said, but his voice didn’t hold its usual firmness. He wasn’t convinced.

She cocked her head sideways and smirked. “You don’t like being called Wang?”

“I have a first name and I’d prefer it if you used it.”

She raised a single eyebrow. “Interesting. Wang.”

“You do want to die.”

“I took self-defense classes.” She said, jokingly punching his arm with her fist.

She bit back the curse that threatened to fall off her lips as her fingers connected with his hard arm muscles. She had to look the other way to blink back tears of pain.

Jackson didn’t seem to notice, as he stared off into space. “They were self-defense classes to protect yourself from petty thieves, not trained governmental agents. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“Killjoy.” She rolled her eyes, rubbing her knuckles.

Silence fell again and this time it was Jackson’s turn to break it. “Just so you know, what you did wasn’t heroic, only extremely stupid and reckless. Not that I’m surprised. Each and every action of yours up until now was a clear display of your lack of common sense.”

Her grip around the railing tightened, whitening her knuckles. Couldn’t he just thank her? It wasn’t like she’d just potentially saved his ass from death.

“You smoke.” She changed subjects. “Nasty.”

“Occasionally. Smoking eases the mind when you’re overthinking.” He replied, rolling with her change of subject. “You should try it.” He added, extending his arm to offer a drag of his cigarette.

She gave him a dark look and ignored his offer. “Do you even feel regret?”

Tension instantly thickened and she almost regretted her words. Jackson knew what she was talking about. Of course he did.

He slowly drew back his arm and shook the end of his cigarette making ashes fall over the railing. His voice was steady when he replied, not missing a beat. “No. I did what I had to do. It was him or us.”

“What if you’d just incapacitated him, or –“ She started.

“To show mercy is to show weakness.” He cut, crushing the cigarette butt against the iron bar, his voice final.

He meant it, Bora could tell. He firmly believed he had done the right thing. Bewildered, she opened her mouth to say something but she didn’t know where to start, each question being replaced by another one.

“This is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard.” Bora simply said.

He pressed his lips with a slight frown. “I’ve thought of other solutions, other ways. There are none. And I’ve learnt to live with it. I don’t expect you to understand. There’s no redemption for people like me. It’s always been like that and always will be.” He said with a tired edge to his voice.

_He thinks he’s hopeless. A lost cause to himself._

What kind of life must he have led to think that? She doubted he’d even lived properly.

She smiled lightly. “Says who? It’s too easy to categorically label yourself as a hopeless case. It’s selfish, weak, not to mention complacent. I believe there is redemption for people who seek after it, Jackson.”

Jackson raised a brow.

“What?” She asked.

“You just called me Jackson.” He smirked.

She rolled her eyes for the nth time. “Tell me if you find the necklace.”

She ended the conversation and headed back inside.

As she was about to step a foot inside, Jackson’s voice held her back. “Ah.”

“What?” She turned back, her eyes darting around and her heart jumping excitedly at the prospect of finding the pendant.

Instead, he said. “Happy birthday.”

She paused and her eyes went up to his face as disappointment set in.

“I wish it was.” She replied, bitterly.

Before he could speak again, Bora slammed the glass door shut with more strength than intended, making the fragile floorboard shake.

Happy birthday? She didn’t feel happy. She was scared, sad and wrecked. There was no such thing as happiness in her life. She’d always known it. She’d just never admitted it. There was something missing in her life. Something she had yet to put a finger on, leaving a bleeding hole in her bitter heart.

 

* * *

 

 

The following morning, the first thought that crossed Bora’s mind was _I fell asleep_. She’d fallen asleep when she’d sworn she wouldn’t.

And it wasn’t the peaceful type of sleep. She’d had another nightmare she couldn’t remember. She remembered being woken up in the middle of the night by the noise of Jackson heating noodles in the microwave. She vaguely recalled throwing a pillow at him and them exchanging hushed curses.

As she emerged from sleep, she felt even more tired than the previous day. Her limbs were sore and she was hurting in several places where bruises had probably appeared.

Overall, it’d been a hellish night.

Her view was obstructed by a paper taped to her forehead. It was a note from Jackson. She peeled it off with a hiss and read it aloud. “Stepped out for a bit. Your snoring was driving me crazy. I’ll be back so don’t move.”

The last command was underlined three times as if one time wouldn’t suffice.

Bora’s face flushed. “I don’t snore.” She mumbled, crumpling the piece of paper.

Did he not sleep at all last night?

Last night.

She thought about their talk and shivers ran up and down her spine.

_“There’s no redemption for people like me.”_

She walked to the coffee machine next to the microwave where her pillow was indeed laying on the floor. He didn’t even bother to pick it up. Dog.

While the coffee machine brewed her morning beverage, she played with the TV’s buttons to turn it on. After a few minutes struggle the screen lit up and the face of a news presenter popped up on the screen.

He was speaking when suddenly, Bora pinch herself several times to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating.

Her face was on the screen, smiling at the camera. It was taken a few months back. Woo Bin was with her on the picture but they’d cropped him out.

A red banner underneath read: “ _Have you seen this person?”_

“The police are currently looking for this woman. Lee Bora, aged 21, from Seoul is currently wanted by the SCPD. She’s suspected of armed assault on two men in a diner outside Seoul last night, one of whom died. She is thought to be hiding with that man, Jackson Wang, aged 23, from Busan.” A picture of Jackson popped up, with a white background, probably from an ID. His facial expression was neutral but somehow his eyes managed to pierce her all the way through the screen.

Her hands started shaking as the presenter carried on. “Their motive is still unknown though the police think Lee might be under the influence of Wang.”

_What the…_

Yoona, her classmate, appeared, furthering Bora’s bewilderment.

“… Don’t believe a word of that.”  Yoona was saying, shaking her hands like a madwoman. “She likes acting tough but she would never be able to do something like that.”

Her clear eyes bored straight to the camera, directly addressing her. “Hey! What’s up with you? Just show up and tell these clowns they’re wrong. You sure love the attention! Stop dragging it already! And who’s that with you? Who’s that with her? Why have I never heard of him?” She turned to the journalist, outraged by the fact Bora hadn’t introduced her to Jackson properly.

“But the videos showed her – “

Yoona didn’t bother replying and grabbed the camera lens. Bora covered her mouth with her hand in shock. Yoona was trying to snatch the camera away from the cameraman’s grasp.

“Yoona, you crazy bitch.” Bora almost wanted to laugh and she would have if the circumstances weren’t so serious.

The video cut on a grimacing and struggling cameraman to pass on to a very familiar face.

“We’re now live outside the Seoul Police Station, where Kim Woobin a close friend of Lee is about to make a statement.”

The face of her best friend, Kim Woobin appeared on the TV surrounded by reporters and she dug her nails in her palm to stop the rush of tears. He looked aghast as he spoke very low. The crowd stilled to hear him speak, only the occasional clicking of a device interrupting the silence.

“I haven’t seen her since two days ago. We fought and she left. But she would never do something like that. And I don’t know the guy with her, she never talked about meeting anyone new neither. There must be a misunderstanding. Bora if you’re watching this, please come home. I’m sorry.” He bowed curtly and made his way through the horde of reporters wanted to get that extra piece of information.

How she missed him. Regret filled every inch of her body. She wished she could go back to the previous morning and stop herself from being too nosy.

The screen changed back to the anchorman. “A reward of 5 million wons is promised to anyone leading to the capture of the two. If you have any information, please contact your local authorities but do not engage the individuals as they may be armed and dangerous.”

Bora turned the screen off and dried off the tears that escaped her. She’d seen enough.

A knock erupted on the door.

Jackson. It was probably him. She had to tell him. They needed to leave. The motel owner had clearly seen their faces and it was only a matter of time until he’d watch the news and snitch on them.

She sighed in relief and opened the door. Except it wasn’t Jackson waiting on the other side.

* * *

“I haven’t seen her since two days ago. We fought and she left. But she would never do something like that. And I don’t know the guy with her, she never talked about meeting anyone new neither. There must be a misunderstanding. Bora if you’re watching this, please come home. I’m sorry.”

Jackson’s head shot up to the TV on the wall of the small grocery store he was roaming in search of some food before Bora woke up. They’d have a long road ahead and he’d come to make provisions. A man he’d never seen was talking in front of the Seoul Police Station. The voice however he recognized instantly. He’d heard it the day before.

_“Weren’t you supposed to be her ride?” Bora’s dad, Lee Hyun Suk, had asked._

_“Yeah, that is – that's complicated. I kind of ditched on her.” He’d replied._

Bora’s best friend. The infamous Woobin who’d offered the necklace.

The screen switched to a picture of Bora, hair let loose and smiling widely like he’d never seen her before as well as a picture of himself. “A reward of 5 million wons is promised to anyone leading to the capture of the two. If you have any information, please contact your local authorities but do not engage the individuals as they may be armed and dangerous.”

The face of the motel owner flashed before his eyes. If he watched the news there was no doubt he’d recognize them both from the night before. And now that money was on the line, what would stop him from calling the police? Jackson balled his fists. _Nothing_.

Jackson flipped his hoodie over his head and scurried out of the shop before the crowd gathered under the TV could recognize him.

They needed to leave. And fast.

 

* * *

 

Bora tried to shut the door.

The man in a police uniform gave her triumphant look as he blocked it with his foot. “Gotcha.”

The girl ran for the balcony but the officer was faster, stronger. He tackled her to the ground and twisted her arms in her back before shackling her.

She yelped in pain. “I didn’t do anything!”

“We’ll decide of that.” Another policeman with a yellow vest spat.

“You! Check the premise until you find the other one. We can’t let him escape.”

The one who had cuffed her pulled her up to her feet like she weighed nothing. He pushed her to his colleague in the hallway. The motel owner was hiding behind a third and last officer like a coward. She made sure to give him a dirty look in passing. It only earned her a slap on the back of her head from the guy leading her outside. She bit her tongue to refrain a curse.

Outside, the police officer bent her head and made her sit in the back of the car. They talked with the owner for a bit while she waited on the back seat, her heart thumping like crazy.

Jackson.

She didn’t know how long he’d been gone. Was it just before she woke up? Or had he been gone for longer than that? What if he came back now? They’d catch him.

Her eyes swept the street, looking for him. He was smart. If he was anywhere near she trusted he wasn’t stupid enough to show himself.

***

Jackson skidded to a halt a few feet away from the motel. He was too late. He watched helplessly as Bora was taken to the police station. He was in the alleyway opposite the motel, where they’d left the motorbike the previous day.

He rubbed his face in frustration and kicked an empty metal can. “Shit.”

He jumped over the engine and quickly trailed the police car before they could distance him too much. He always made sure to keep a safe distance until they finally led him to the Yeongju police station.

He parked the vehicle out of sight. He watched as one policeman pulled Bora out of the backseat and pushed her to another man. The girl yelped and pain flashed across her face as an officer roughly grabbed her arm and led her inside the premise. Jackson clenched his jaw at the sight of her being manhandled by these cowards.

With no other options, he called a familiar number.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?” Mark Tuan’s voice boomed on the receiving end of the phone. He’d been anticipating that call, Jackson could tell.

Jackson closed his eyes. “They took her.”

“Where are you right now?”

“The Yeongju police station. She’s inside.”

“Do you have the black box?”

The black box. He’d almost forgotten about what was at stake. His encounter with Bora had eclipsed almost everything else.

“Yeah.”

“Then come back.”

Jackson opened his eyes, almost dropping the phone. “What do you mean come back?”

“I mean you leave her and come home. Your face is everywhere on the news.” Even over the phone, Jackson could imagine Mark baring his teeth as he spoke. “We’re _this_ close to getting exposed. You stand down and bring your ass back to HQ to figure this out.”

Jackson recalled Bora’s father’s orders on the phone earlier.

 “Lee Hyun Suk –“

“Lee Hyun Suk fucking quit. He left the organization when his wife died because he didn’t want his daughter to end up like her mom; and that’s fine.  But, he selfishly abandoned both our fathers, he doesn’t deserve our favors. Neither does Lee Bora.”

Jackson balled a fist. “He’s on his way to Busan. He wants to see his daughter. What do you think he’ll do if he learns we abandoned her? She’s accused of murder. A murder _I_ committed. You don’t know what they’ll do to her.”

“And I don’t care either. The black box is what matters! Is her life worth all the damage the black box could make?”

He didn’t reply. The logical answer was _no. No, her life isn’t worth thousands of others._

“That’s what I thought.” Mark said more calmly. “We’re not bodyguards. Stand down. Do you copy?”

A long silence stretched between the two and Mark reiterated his question.

“Copy that.” Jackson finally said softly.

He hung the phone up but a bitter taste filled his mouth.

He looked one last time at the police station entrance before getting on the motorbike.

_Sorry, Bora. Looks like you’re on your own now._

* * *

 

“Let me repeat.” The police officer gritted out, face red. “Where. Is. Jackson. Wang?”

“Let me repeat. I can’t tell you something I don’t know.” Bora replied, her cuffed palms facing the ceiling in earnest.

They’d been at it for a few minutes only, and the guy had already lost his chill.

He hissed showing rotten teeth, and before he could talk, someone barged into the interrogation room. “Boss!”

A young guy appeared, followed by a man in his early thirties in a white coat.

“What is it? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of an interrogation?”

“It’s the NIS. They’re here.”

“The National Intelligence Services?”

Bora’s palms turned clammy. _The Korean secret services?_

“They’ve come to take her.” He jerked his chin towards Bora.

Colors drained from her face and the metallic taste of fear coated her tongue.

The man grinned widely. “Looks like you’re being transferred.” His voice sounded like a death sentence. “You’re gonna wish you’d told us the truth.”

“Where? Where are you taking me?” She asked as the man who’d interrupted them uncuffed her.

She drew back with a jerk at the sight of the needle in the white coat’s hand. “Woah. What is that? What do you need that for?”

The officer who was interrogating her grabbed a fistful of her hair and plastered her against the cold metal of the table. She tried to wiggle out of his grasp, in vain. He held her face down, exposing her neck and a bulging vein. She started shaking uncontrollably and screamed when the needle plunged inside her neck. Her heart was running a hundred miles a second and tears started streaming down her cheeks.

“Time for a power nap.” The policeman purred.

A cold liquid penetrated her and no less than thirty seconds later, she was out cold.


	12. Abducted

She heard it before she felt it. The moving water and the clang of metal against metal echoed in her ears well before a bucket full of water was thrown onto her face and filling her airways.

Bora jolted awake and forced air down into her lungs with deep, uncontrolled breaths. It took a while to convince her brain she wasn’t drowning.

She tried to wipe her face, but her hands, she realized with horror, were tightly duct taped to the metallic chair she was sat on. She was barefoot and in a tank top.

“Good morning, sunshine!” A voice resonated in a corner of the room.

A dirty lightbulb weakly basked the room in an orange light. The air felt damp, and she could hear running water somewhere beneath her feet.

She gathered she was underground, probably in a cave or in a sewer crawling with rats. She leaned towards the latter and suspected the water thrown onto her was wastewater.

_Ew._

She almost retched at the smell of rotten trash that mixed with the oppressive heat. The air was horribly humid and sweat already glistened on her bare skin.

The man who’d woken her up discarded the metallic bucket in a corner. The metal echoed loudly against the concrete floor and beyond into what she suspected was a maze of conduits, pipes and air ducts. He opened the door and closed it behind him in a racket of rusty hinges.

The man who’d spoken in the shadows treaded slowly towards her. His face came into view, lit by the weak lightbulb but she recognized him.

She shut her eyes. _No, no, please, no._

She reopened her eyes but it was still the same man. The one whose head she’d crushed a frying pan on while he was struggling with Jackson.

He smiled a toothy smile and wrinkles appeared at the corner of his eyes.

“You’re quite the elusive one, aren’t you?”

_Hoo Seonmin._

* * *

 

Jackson didn’t know why but he didn’t leave right after hanging up on Mark. He stayed rooted in his spot for a few more minutes.

Something felt off.

His gut feeling worsened when a large van hurtled down a narrow lane and turned around the parking lot heading for the back of the police station. But not before Jackson picked up the odd plate number.

NIS.  

The National Intelligence Services had come all the way here… Why?

Two men stepped out of the vehicle and disappeared inside the building. Five minutes later, they came back out but they weren’t alone. One of them was carrying something over his shoulder.

_No, someone._

Without thinking, Jackson took a step forward.

Bora was hanging limp over the guy’s shoulder. Jackson never saw her face which was covered by a sack but he recognized her clothes from the previous day. He reached to his pocket and pulled out his cellphone.

The other end picked up right away. “Captain.”

“Do we have cars around the Yeongju area? I’ve already broken into three. I left mine in Seoul last night.” Jackson said referring to his cherished white foreign sports car he’d left near the bank.

“Hello, to you too. I’m fine, thank you,” A snarky voice answered. “I totally did not just spend the whole entire day with the monster you call your sister glued to my ass prodding for updates about what kind of mess you got yourself into. Girl thinks I got a third eye or something.”

“Do you?”

“Well, more like 7500 eyes in Seoul alone.” He replied nonchalantly. “Korea really is a heaven for CCTV cameras, I’m spoon-fed. They just do half if not all the work for me, it’s not even funny anymore.” He said in a whiny voice. “Ah, and to answer your question, yes, we do have cars around Yeongju. I just sent the location to your phone.”

As talkative as he was, Bambam was even more efficient and lived up to his reputation of an IT genius. There was not a single day Jackson regretted taking him under his wing.

“Nice. Do you have eyes on the Yeongju police station?”

“Yeah. That shirt’s boring by the way.”

Jackson held his fist up in a vulgar gesture.

Bambam tsked. “I saw that.”

“I know. See that car about to leave? In that alley I’m facing.”

A silence stretched on the other side as Bambam probably zoomed in on the said spot.

“Ohhh, our national CIA?” Bambam said mockingly and Jackson could almost hear the mischievous smile spread across his face. “You want me to blow something up?”

“What?” Jackson frowned. “No. They took Lee Hyun Suk’s daughter. But I can’t follow them without them noticing. I need you to keep an eye on them. I’ll give them a head start. I’m counting on you to keep track of their location and keep me updated. Clear?”

“Crystal clear.” Bambam replied. “So it really was her who pulled a Korean ambush on you?”

Jackson scratched his head. He knew this episode at the bank would undeniably come back to bite his ass.

“Tell Rin I’m fine.”

“You tell her.” Bambam said.

“Jax!” Nairin, his 18-year-old sister’s voice screeched and Jackson pulled the phone away with a frown.

“Hello, Rin.”

“What happened? Did you really get lured into a Korean ambush?” She giggled out loud. “Are you serious? It’s like the first step trainees are put through here! I am _so_ telling Dad.”

“Talk to you later.” Jackson growled, getting ready to hang up.

“Wait!” Nairin cried out loud. “Did you get that Seoul homemade tofu I told you about?”

“Do I look like I had time to go shopping?” Jackson growled.

“Jeez, Jax, relax.” She mumbled under her breath and he didn’t catch the rest of her sentence. “Is the girl who ambushed you really Lee Hyun Suk’s daughter? Everyone’s going cray here at HQ. How is she like?” She asked, her voice transpiring curiosity.

Jackson paused to think about his answer.

“Trouble. She’s like trouble. But worse.”

* * *

 

Hoo Seonmin grinned. “Do I look familiar?”

 _Yes, yes, you do_ , Bora wanted to scream.

He slid something out of his pocket and showed her a picture warped by time.

It showed two familiar-looking men arm in arm and a beer in their hands, smiling brightly for the camera.

 “What about him?” Seonmin pointed to the man on the right. “Does he look familiar to you?”

_Yes, yes, he did. But now he’s dead because Jackson snapped his neck barely 24 hours ago._

“Imagine this: The government send me on a simple mission with my brother. Except, only one of us comes back alive.”

She closed her eyes.

Crap. That was his brother? 

 _Well, he did try to kill you,_ her inner voice said.

“I’m supposed to feel sorry for that brute?” She said, before she could stop herself.

Seonmin’s fist met her jaw and drew blood.

She coughed and spat. “What does the government want with me, anyways?” She paused, almost wanting to laugh at the prospect. “I didn’t kill your brother. And I don’t know where Jackson Wang is neither.”

That was true. She didn’t know where he was and it unsettled her.

“Oh, I know the Wang boy and where he is. Believe me when I tell you, it’s you and I now. No one’s coming for you.” He said, hinting at something she didn’t know.  “What the government might want from you is simple: tell me everything the Wang boy told you, from the beginning.”

That was what it was all about? Using her to get information about Jackson?

“Why not ask him?” She spat.

“He’s off limits.” Seonmin continued, almost annoyed. “You, on the other hand…” He stroked her cheek. “You’ll have to do.”

“I’m afraid I won’t be of great help,” She scoffed, pulling away from his hand.

“Didn’t hear him say anything? Never heard of a, ah, black box?”

Recognition crossed her face and he caught it before she could cover up her expression.

“Bingo.”

He went to a corner of the room and came in front of her with a metallic box. He pulled out what looked like an oversized multimeter with electrical wires hanging off.

“What is that?” She said, panic lacing her words, though she knew exactly what that was for.

He didn’t reply and stuck electrodes to her chest and forehead.

He pulled a chair and sat in front of her.

“Alright. Let’s begin. What do you know of the black box?”

“Nothing!”

“What are they planning to do with it?” He ignored her response. “Where are their headquarters, hm? What’re they up to?”

“I told you I don’t know. He didn’t tell me anything! I swear! Please, don’t, don’t!” She pleaded as tears blurred her vision and Seonmin reached for the big red button that could only mean trouble.

“You sure?”

“Yes! I don’t know!”

He turned the power on the device and harrowing screams ripped out of Bora’s mouth as electricity spiked up her veins and held her heart in an iron fist. Her teeth clenched, her toes curled and her throat burned from her increasingly loud screams.

“That’s it!” Seonmin screamed even louder. “Scream for me! No one’s gonna hear you, love.”

 

* * *

 

Jackson cursed as he arrived at the location of Bora’s captors. “Great, they got me all the way back to Seoul.”

They were just outside the capital in what looked like a desolated and abandoned field. Night was coming and with it the chilly wind.

“You sure this is the place?” Jackson asked an annoyed Bambam through his earpiece.

“Are you doubting Bambam?”

“You need to stop referring to yourself in the third-person. Plus, there’s nothing here. It’s just wasteland and a forest beyond.”

“I’m telling you this is the place. I’m using thermal imaging camera and it says there’s something right here.”

“You mean in the forest?”

“No. On the field.”

“It doesn’t make sense I’m in the middle of the field right now and there’s––” Jackson stopped mid-sentence as a lightbulb went off in his head. His eyes darkened. “They’re underground.”

* * *

 

Bora started at the sound of the old rusty door being slammed open. Her captor had come back. He’d left her alone for what felt like hours but really were just a few agonizing minutes of painfully catching her breath. She was barely recovering from the earlier torture that he was already back.

 _That’s it,_ she told herself. _I’m going to die. I’m going to die 6 feet deep and no one will ever know. What will Woobin think? Will Jackson feel guilty about breaking the promise he made to dad?_

Seonmin slammed the door shut, starting Bora out her thoughts. He approached the girl and crouched down next to her chair.

“I’ve already raised this at 20,000 volts but I can raise it. At 50,000, your organism will begin to suffer tissue damage. At 70, you _will_ go into cardiac arrest.”

She was panting and couldn’t even hold his stare.

“Ahh, so stubborn. Just like your mother.”

Her eye twitched and she said in a hoarse voice, “What do you know of my mother?”

“Quite a lot. She was stubborn _and_ very talkative and it led her to her undoing.” He got up and sighed. “I believe you don’t know what’s on the Black box. Your mother, however, did.”

She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean she was nosy and got killed for it.”

Bora shook her head. “She died in a car crash. We—I was with her, a t-truck hit us, we were—“

“Well, someone had to be driving that truck.” He laughed.

Realization set in and her blood curled in her veins. “You killed her.”

“This was no mundane car crash. It was an execution.”

* * *

 

There’s that quote that said that the reason we met people was either because we needed them to change our lives or we were the ones that would change theirs.

Bora’s reason for meeting Hoo Seonmin was for him to change her life. He changed the course of her life in a rusty damp stinky cell, hundreds of feet beneath the ground, minutes before her life would come to an end.

 _At least_ , she told herself, _at least I’ll die with full knowledge of the facts._

Hoo Seonmin had grabbed a chair and sat opposite her, his legs propped up on a cardstock. He adorned a smirk and Bora wanted nothing but to wipe that smile off his face.

“See,” Seonmin started, relishing in giving her the facts bit by bit. “when your dad was in the military, he was given a mission. A mission he did not like one bit. He and two of his _companions_ wanted out, they took advantage of their positions of power to pressure the government into letting them out of the army. Their sons too. The Tuan and Wang boys never enlisted, never will.”

As much as she hated it, Bora was drinking each of his words like the water she desperately needed.

“They were planning on assassinating the president of North Korea. To do so, you father gathered a bunch of good for nothing, ––Korean civilians, from prisons and off the streets––shipped them off to an island called Silmido in the middle of the Yellow Sea and trained them to become assassins. The government tailored its very own suicide squad. They were promised a good sum of money and/or freedom if they achieved the mission successfully.”

Bora scoffed. “You’re on a fucking high.”

Seonmin chuckled, not affected in the least. “The issue, you see, is that when they finally were about to fulfill the mission after years of intense training and the deaths of a third of the squad on the island, relationships between the North and the South kind of… how shall I put it? Got better? And the South realized that maybe violence was not the answer.” He snorted. “Personally, I think that’s bullshit, but that’s just my opinion.” He shrugged. “Their biggest fear back then and even to this day, is the North finding out the South’s plans to execute their leader. Can you imagine what would happen if the North uncovered a machinery to kill their leader?”

“A war.” Bora croaked out.

“Exactly! You’re quick witted! A war is the last thing they wanted and the President personally ordered your father to wipe the squad out of existence. No proof had to be left. Surprisingly, your father had qualms about it. I think he got attached to the kids. Ironic, isn’t it? Anyhow, I don’t know what leverage daddy dearest found on the President that was so outrageous. But after that, the President had no choice but to let him, Tuan and Wang off the hook. Whatever it is, it’s on that damned black box.”

Her eyes were fixated on the ground. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’re about to die anyway.” He said sweetly.

Her eyes darted around. “What about the squadron? Were they freed?”

“I’m glad you asked! While your father did all his negotiating with the government, he left behind a bunch of time bombs, trained to kill. They were cut off from society. But they knew something was going on. That they were never going to leave the island. So, they revolted. Killed their guards, came back on the mainland, and went to the Blue House in a desperate attempt to get back at the hypocritical governments officials. They hijacked a bus to Seoul before being stopped by the authorities and blowing themselves up.”

He paused to let his words sink in.

“Among the 31 recruits,” he held his fingers to count down. “seven died in training, twenty were killed in the uprising, and the four who survived were executed after a military trial. Which leaves us with,” He held his fist up. “no one!” He roared of laughter but Bora felt sick in her stomach. Electricity was better torture, she decided.

And then, came the coup de grace, “I don’t know if you mother ever found out about the mission. However, she definitely found out about whatever is on the Black Box. That night you were heading for Seoul, she was going to meet a reporter to snitch. You know what we do to snitches here?”

Bora saw red and her blood boiled in her veins. “You k-k-illed my mom. You killed someone because of a stupid hard drive.”

“A stupid hard drive? You really don’t know what’s on it, do you?” He said amazed.

“I don’t give a shit either! You almost killed _me_.”

“You were supposed to die. They called you the miraculous child. You managed to glean eight more years for yourself. Consider yourself lucky.”

She remembered a detail from that night. Footsteps. She’d heard footsteps but later decided she was hallucinating. But it was true. He’d been there.

Suddenly, she didn’t want to die anymore. She refused to accept her fate. She was full of a new kind of emotion.

Hatred.

Hatred and anger and rage. She wanted revenge. She could not die. Not now.

She jerked her body forward but was stopped by her ties. “YOU KILLED HER!”

“And you killed my brother!” He yelled back, pushing his chair back violently. “An eye for an eye.” He pulled her hair back, a vein popping on his forehead. “Any last words?”

She held his stare as something clicked inside of her.

“You’re right,” She whispered and Seonmin leaned forward to catch her words. “an eye for an eye. But there’s something you don’t know. Something more.” She paused. “If you take my eye, I’ll take both your eyes and your dominant arm.”

The knife she’d been working in the palm of her hand finally ripped her ties. Her right hand sprung free and connected with Seonmin’s jaw. She only had seconds before the surprise element would wear off. She ripped her other tie at the same time Seonmin was coming for her.

She gave him another blow which he parried and her other hand, still clutched around the dagger’s handle, ran the blade inside his stomach to the hilt. Blood trickled down her fist and to her elbow. She pulled out the dagger and the man fell on the ground, making strangled noises.

She took several steps back, her body shaking uncontrollably. She went to the door, knowing all too well there were men standing guard. She blocked the lock with a metal bar.

“Y-You won’t get away like that.” Seonmin gurgled.

“Don’t worry.” She said in a shaky voice, towering over him. “You neither.”

Not losing another second, Bora ran for the air duct she’d noticed fixated on the ground near a shelf on her right while Seonmin ranted. She gripped the handle with her free hand and opened it wide, to be met with a gaping opening.

She threw Seonmin a last glance. “This isn’t over.”

And she slid inside.


	13. Escape

Bora’s bare feet hit the metallic air duct beneath.

The material quivered and sent a sound running down the hallways beneath.

Panting, she balanced herself straight on wobbly legs. The pipe was large enough for her not to feel too oppressed.

She walked with her back bent until she reached a metal grate that she guessed would lead to the hallways beneath, and eventually to the exit.

She crouched down and snuck an eye through one of the many holes but there was only darkness. She plastered her ear against the grate.

No harried footsteps, no gunshots.

No one seemed to be waiting for her under.

She took a deep breath and swallowed hard.

Inch by inch, she carefully slid the rusty grate open. It was heavier than expected. She bit her lip under the effort and sweat formed on her forehead.

She finally opened it. She sat on the edge and balanced her legs out. Holding onto the edge, she let her body hang in the air beneath the pipe.

She glanced down. The ground was just a few feet below. Nothing deadly. Or so she hoped.

She let go of the edge and closed her eyes, bracing herself for the impact. Her feet hit the ground and she landed on something she didn’t realize was there with the darkness.

Water.

She was ankle-deep in sewer water.

It splashed all over. The sound was deafening in the silence that reigned over the sewer. Her face contorted and she gagged at the rotten eggs smell.

She covered her nose with her arm. The mix of sweat and blood made Celeste the dagger slip out of her hand and she readjusted her grip.

Slowly she walked listening for potential attackers. But apart from the drip-dropping of water and the occasional rat running, she didn’t hear a thing.

It was deathly quiet.

* * *

 

_Drip._

“Totally not my business, but, does Mark know you’re doing this?”

_Drop._

“You’re right. It’s not your business.”

_Drip._

“I take it he doesn’t know,” Bambam sneered. “It wasn’t even a question, really. I heard him on the phone with you.”

_Drop._

“Why give him this false sense of leadership if you ain’t gonna follow his lead anyways? That’s fucked up.”

 _Drip_.

“I’m not into politics,” Jackson murmured. “Besides, he needs it more than I do.”

_Drop._

“Well, that wasn’t condescending at all.” Bambam deadpanned.

“Shut it,” Jackson gritted out. “I can’t hear anything with a voiceover.”

Silence came back after a scoff on Bambam’s part.

Jackson heard voices shouting and footsteps running his way. He quickly hid in a tiny storage room, keeping an eye out to the corridor.

* * *

 

Bora made her first turn and stopped dead in her tracks.

A silhouette was stationed, back to her. She stilled and started backtracking. She was about to turn the corner she came from when something slalomed between her legs. She looked down and her eyes widened at the creature scurrying away.

A rat.

She jumped away, sending water splashing again.

“Who’s there?” The man instantly turned around aiming his gun at her.

She looked up in horror before breaking into a run.

“Hey!”

Her heart threatening to burst out of her chest, she went back to her starting point, heading for the other turn, and another. Each corridor resembled the last and she wouldn’t be able to tell which way led outside to save her life.

She could hear the man’s footsteps chasing after her, shouting over a talkie-walkie words she didn’t catch. But she could only imagine what he was telling his colleagues.

Her heart skipped another beat when she was stopped mid-run and pulled inside a tiny storage room. Warmth enveloped her as the person wrapped a hand around her mouth, muffling her scream and pressed her back against their chest. Another arm wrapped around her stomach, locking her arms together.

Just before darkness engulfed the room, she recognized the now familiar tattoos on the man’s skin and she craned her neck to meet Jackson’s eyes.

“ _Shhh_ ,” he mouthed.

Her legs almost gave out in relief and if he wasn’t holding her so firmly, she would be on the ground.

They didn’t have to wait long before a horde of footsteps ran down the hallway noisily and Jackson pressed his hand harder against her mouth. She could feel his own heartbeat against her back.

“Target with vital information escaped,” A loud voice boomed so near Bora thought he was inside the room. “Orders are to shoot on sight. I repeat, shoot on sight. Over.”

Bora’s eyes widened and her insides twisted. The noise faded out as the crowd ran elsewhere in the maze of conducts.

Jackson slowly untangled their limbs, keeping a hold on Bora’s elbows with the tip of his fingers to secure her. She turned around on shaky legs to face him, or at least what she guessed was him in the dark.

“We need to stop saving each other.” Jackson’s voice rose. “Or getting into situations that need saving in the first place.”

“You – you… I thought that you –” She stuttered, not fully recovered from both the shock of seeing him and the thrill of the chase.

“That I what?” He asked distractedly, half-opening the door to let the haunting conduit light filter in.

She held her fist up higher and looked at the dagger she had been holding like it was the first time she was seeing it. “He told me you wouldn’t… come. So I figured something happened.”

Jackson’s eyes focused back on her and he instantly zeroed in on her bloody arm.

“What did you do?” He asked, his voice sending chills crawling down her nape.

“The guy from yesterday.” She showed him the blood on the dagger. “The man you k-killed was his brother.”

Jackson angled his body towards Bora and his eyes burned holes through her, a mixture of anger and… fear?

“You killed him?”

He didn’t touch her, but he might as well have grabbed her collar and shaken her up.

“N-No,” She stuttered, not comprehending his odd behavior. “I didn’t kill him!” She repeated, taking a step forward, a frown marring her face.

Did he think her capable of killing someone?

He exhaled through his nose and the gleam faded from his eyes.

He was back to normal. At least, normal by his standards.

He scoffed at the blood trickling down the corner of her mouth to her chin.

“See?” He said, “This is what you get for showing mercy.”

A strange look crossed her eyes. What happened with Seonmin in the cell rushed back to her mind but Bora didn’t want to think about it now. It was too overwhelming, she would probably have a panic attack and now wasn’t the time.

She wiped the blood with her wrist.

Before Jackson could ask anything about it, like she suspected he would, she looked up to the door.

“We need to get out of here.”

Jackson paused but nodded, not pressing her.

“It’s an underground facility,” He informed her. “Only one way in, one way out. Ready?”

“Wait! Didn’t you hear them?” She whisper-yelled. "They’ll shoot me on sight!”

“They won’t do anything if I’m with you.”

Bora crossed her arms over her chest, “That’s a lot of trust to put in one human.”

“There’s a manhunt going on out there,” He started slowly, like he was speaking to a child

 He seemed dumbfounded she was still that stubborn in her situation. He sure had never met anyone quite like her.

“I’m not asking you to trust me,” He said in earnest. “but right now, I’m all you have.”

Bora winced.

That much was true.

She sighed but nodded, resigned.

* * *

 

The pair exited the tiny storage room on the tip of their toes.

Bambam was giving directions in Jackson’s ears and Bora had no choice but to follow him, a ball of nerves bundling up in the pit of her stomach.

“ _Stop! Back, back, back!”_ Bambam shouted in Jackson’s earpiece as they were about to take a turn. Jackson wisely complied and stopped abruptly. Following blindly, Bora had to clamp her mouth shut to refrain a curse at Jackson’s sudden stop.

“I swear Wang if you don’t get me out of here alive…”

“If you go back, you’re caught, if you go forth, you’re also dead.” Bambam said.

Jackson gritted his teeth in frustration at the both of them.

 _What do you suggest, then_? He wanted to snarl.

All he could do, though, was wait for Bambam to indicate him the way. He hated being so dependent on someone in such a situation.

“Wait,” Bambam said. “I think that dude is leaving… Yes, that’s it! He’s gone, go, go, go! Right ahead!”

Jackson stepped into the hallway stealthily followed by Bora whose bare feet were hurting and ice cold. She couldn’t even feel them.

A few sharp stops and starts on Bora’s part later, they reached a ladder. It was set on a concrete wall at the end of yet another dull and cold corridor.

Jackson started climbing up the ladder but Bora anxiously stayed rooted in her spot chewing the inside of her cheek and a worried frown crossing her forehead.

“No matter how I put it I don’t see where you’re going,” She shared her thoughts, looking up to the ceiling. “Are you sure this is the way out?”

“Yes,” Jackson grunted in effort as he pushed on the ceiling.

A circular opening unlocked with a pneumatic hiss revealing stars tearing through the dark sky.

“Come on,” He urged her.

As she stepped a foot on the first rung, she heard them again.

Footsteps. Running.

She turned her neck back and sure enough, there they were.

Hungry lions.

And she was dinner.

She hurried up the ladder. She reached Jackson on the surface at the same time the men reached the foot of the ladder. She put all her weight to seal the opening. She only had time to see one man aiming his gun at her before she sealed the opening.

“Well that was close,” Bora sighed, her heart beating erratically.

“ _I don’t think they planned this through,”_ Bambam snickered in Jackson’s earpiece.

“Really?” Jackson replied to the both of them.

Bora turned at Jackson’s odd tone.

Three men were waiting for them, the barrel of their guns directed on their foreheads.

* * *

 

“You shouldn’t have come.” One of the guys, the tallest with auburn hair said to Jackson.

Jackson ripped his earpiece off.

“Long time no see, Jaebum. I see you brought your lapdogs.”

As though on cue, the two others groaned.

Jaebum tsked, “Isn’t this misplaced coming from someone constantly running errands for his father?”

Jaebum’s gaze shifted behind Jackson where Bora was shamelessly using his body as a shield.

“Look,” Jaebum started turning his gaze back on Jackson. His voice toned down a bit in an attempt to ease the tensions. “We only came for her, alright?”

Jackson raised an eyebrow.

“She _knows._ ” Jaebum insisted.

“So I’ve heard.” Jackson replied coolly.

Jaebum’s jaw clenched as he realized he wouldn’t be having it easy tonight.

He made a step forward and Bora took a step back.

She was terrified

Jackson didn’t budge, a solid wall separating the girl from Jaebum.

Jaebum tried to reach for Bora only to be stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder. They stood toe-to-toe and stared each other down.

The air grew still and the tension hitched up a notch. Jaebum’s lackeys went tense and the clinking of a loaded gun echoed in the night.

“Come on, Jackson,” Jaebum let out low enough for his men not to hear them. “Have you forgotten where your best interests lie?”

Jackson tilted his head.

“I know exactly where my best interests lie,” He matched his tone. “If you want her, you’ll have to go through me first. You haven’t become that bold since the last time I saw you, have you?”

Silence fell over the field. Jackson and Jaebum sized each other up and Bora could tell there was more going on between the two than met the eye.

These two had a history.

And not a good one.

Jaebum’s gun unapologetically went to Jackson’s temple.

“Or maybe you have,” Jackson whispered. Even though Bora was behind Jackson, she could hear the smile in his voice. “Alright, alright, if you insist.”

Jackson trailed off and turned to Bora who took a step back.

But instead of handing her over to Jaebum he mouthed one word.

_Run._

Bora frowned. Jackson balled a fist and turned around a split second later, hitting Jaebum straight to the jaw. Bora heard the cracking of bones before she even registered what was happening.

Her survival instincts took over and her legs sprinted off to the forest.

She had almost reached the edge of the forest when she heard footsteps following her. She dared glance back and instantly regretted it. At the sight of one of the lackeys chasing after her, a spike of adrenaline rushed through her being and she pushed harder on her sore legs to distance herself from the men.

“Run all you want!” One of them laughed from behind. “You can’t go very far!”

Bora went deep into the forest. The night was pitch black and the humidity from summer rains was unbearable. Sweat covered her face, sticking her hair to her forehead like glue.

Bora couldn’t take the heat anymore.

She stopped running and looked around.

She needed somewhere to hide. If she carried on running she would pass out in the middle of the vegetation.

She slid in the shallow cavity of a tree trunk and curled up on herself. She made sure her limbs didn’t stick out. Her chest heaved up and down as her vision blurred and she had trouble breathing.

The steps chasing after her finally caught up, slowed down, to come to a complete stop.

“I know you’re here,” A voice rose, so close Bora’s heart dropped to her feet.

She stayed planted in her spot. She couldn’t move anyway. If she wanted a chance to get out of the forest, her enemies would have to be leaving first.

She heard the crunching of leaves under their feet. They were only a few feet away.

Maybe they were right behind her tree.

She couldn’t tell.

* * *

 

Jackson landed the first hit and Jaebum rolled his jaw.

Bora sprinted off, followed by one of Jaebum’s men.

The other hesitated staying behind but Jaebum was quick to dismiss him, “He’s mine.”

Jackson smiled at that.

“Found your new pet?” Jaebum sniggered when they were alone. “Care sharing? Just like old times.”

Jackson laughed, “I’m all down. You’d have to ask her, though.”

Jackson followed each of Jaebum’s moves with careful attention, waiting for the guy to get back at him.

Jaebum discarded his gun to the side, “Understandable.”

So he wanted to play it fair.

He glanced at the tattoo curling up Jackson’s arm. “The list got longer.”

“I might just add another name tonight.”

Baring his teeth, Jaebum launched himself at Jackson. They engaged in a battle, choreographed like a dance they learned by heart. Each move was perfectly mastered and met with equally mastered opposition.

They were both equally good. None of them dominated the fight. Each of them had found their match.

Just when Jackson locked Jaebum’s arm in his back overpowering his opponent, gunshots erupted back in the forest, echoing in the night.

Once, twice.

Jackson’s brow furrowed as he looked back.

_Shit. Did Bora get caught?_

A sense of urgency took over him and the only thing he wanted was to get rid of Jaebum as fast as possible.

Jaebum took advantage of Jackson’s fleeting distraction to strike him in the nose with his elbow. Jackson bent down and blood trickled down his nose. Jaebum then locked him in a chokehold.

“Getting distracted?” He grunted in Jackson’s ears.

Jackson smirked, displaying bloodied teeth, “You wish.”

In the blink of an eye and with considerable effort, he kneeled on one knee and flipped Jaebum over his shoulder and onto the grass with a grunt. Jaebum’s skull hit the ground dramatically.

Jackson stealthily stood up and picked up the gun discarded on the ground. He aimed it at a stunned Jaebum as he towered over him.

“This is the difference between you and I,” Jackson said, paying no heed to the blood. “You’re not in control.”

His chest heaving up and down, Jaebum grimaced and reached for the back of his head. He looked at the blood covering his hand. He turned his head to spit blood on the ground next to him.

He looked back to Jackson with heinous eyes. “Come on, Wang, do it!”

Jackson loaded the gun.

He pulled the trigger.


	14. Limbo

 

Jackson loaded the gun.

He pulled the trigger.

The gun fired, and like in slow motion, gunpowder shot out of the barrel so powerful Jackson’s grip around the butt of the gun loosened.

Jaebum froze, and closed his eyes. A handful of seconds later, he reopened them to see his enemy towering over him, an arm outstretched. Jackson was staring at him, something like madness glinting in his irises.

Jaebum’s ears burned where the bullet had grazed him before lodging itself in the ground half an inch away from his ear. He swallowed hard and exhaled the breath he’d been holding in as Jackson tossed the gun away.

“She’s with me,” Jackson said, not smiling anymore. “Get the message across.”

And he disappeared from Jaebum’s line of sight.

 

* * *

 

 

A gunshot erupted shaking the night up and sending wild animals scurrying away and birds flying away.

Then another, and another as her pursuer shot blindly in the hopes of scaring her out of her hideout. She flinched each time.

He shot again and… fire.

Her _arm_ was on fire.

It was licking her from the shoulder and down to her fingertips. And then it spread to her whole body like a cobweb, triggering each nerve ending.

Unbeknownst to him, the man had successfully shot her square through the shoulder.

Yet the pain seemed to be everywhere.

From the top of her head to the tip of her toes, she felt burning pain like she never had before.

One of her hands flew to her shoulder by reflex, pressing against the wound like she saw so many times on TV. She caught her forearm between her teeth to prevent any screams from tumbling out her mouth.

“Stop it, stop it!” The other man hissed, grabbing his partner’s arm. “She’s not here, imbecile. Keep on going before we lose her for good.”

The other grumbled something under his breath and they left. When their steps faded out for good, Bora released her arm from her teeth and the taste of blood spread in her mouth. She was still trying to stop the blood from gushing out of her wound with uneven breaths. Her pain mixed with terror, her whole body shaking uncontrollably.

It took her a solid five minutes to get back standing on her legs. They felt like jelly and her whole being was crying for some rest. Her brain urged her to get the hell out of these woods, but her body wanted to shut down completely and take a rest right on a bed of cherry blossoms. She didn’t really know where she was going. She just knew she needed to move. If she remained here, there would be no hope of her being found ever again.

Just when she was about to give up, lay down on the dirt and let herself slip away, a light flickered in the corner of her eye.

It _seemed_ close but then again, her judgement was clouded by her dazed state.

She struggled to focus on the logical part of her brain, and her body responded with a wave of dizziness. She used the last of her strength to stumble out the woods, taking occasional breaks leaning against thick trunks. She didn’t know how long it took for her to finally see the outline of the building where the light was.

It was a gas station.

She'd covered most of the distance, yet the time between first seeing the light and actually reaching it seemed even longer. When she reached the asphalt road separating the woods from the gas station, it reminded her of the night of her mother’s death.

The road was a perfect replica. The only thing missing was the rain. She swore she could smell the smoke, and oil pouring out the gas tank. All the rush of bad memories took her breath away and made her stomach churn.

 She ended the last feet half running and half crawling, wanting to get as far away as possible from the road, trying to distance the invisible beast chasing after her. She stepped into the station’s phonebooth, the only thing lit up besides the sign above the gas pumps.

Bora knew the digits by heart.

“Congratulations! You have reached the mailbox of Bambam. If you’re a hot chick, you may leave a message at the tone. If you’re one of Bambam's friends, you may also leave a message at the tone. If you’re not hot and not one of Bambam's friends, call back when you are!”

Her legs gave out and she slipped to the floor of the cabin, “What the…” Bora’s voice cracked, close to tears. Had this been a joke to him? “F-Fucking Jackson W—”

Her throat constricted and she choked on the end of her sentence; it’d taken a lot of energy just to say that.

“Wait, who is you?” The voice from the voicemail asked, audibly surprised.

She pulled the phone away and stared at it with a frown, forgetting the pain for a split second.

“Who is you?” She bit back, plastering the phone against her ear.

“I asked first!” The person said in a boyish voice.

She sighed, not up for a fight or to play games, “I’m Bora, Lee Bora.”

“In the name of all that’s holy… How did you get that number?” The young man asked.

“Jackson gave it to me in case of emergency, but I don’t think that’s what’s important right now,” She added, getting slightly annoyed. She stole a glance in the direction of her blood-red shoulder and closed her eyes.

“What happened?” Bambam asked, more serious.

After a quick recount of the night’s events Bambam told her to stay put while he called backup. She didn’t bother telling him she was in no shape to wander around. And even if she was, where would she go anyway?

“Hurry.” She pressed him.

“Don’t tell me what to do.” He said dryly before hanging up.

Bora wanted to protest, she wanted him to stay on the line. Even if she didn’t know him, she didn’t want to be left alone. She’d rather deal with an insolent boy than be left alone to her scary thoughts.

But she didn’t have the strength to and was left with the flat tone of the phone.

So she waited, zoning in and out. And every time she slipped away, the burning of her wound brought her back to reality.

Until it didn’t anymore.

She couldn’t feel her arm anymore.

She was numb; felt herself slipping for good.

* * *

 

Jackson stopped at the gas station, tires screeching.

Not bothering to kill the engine, he exited the car and ran to the phone booth. It was the only thing lit up in the middle of the night and stood out. His steps faltered at the pitiful sight of Bora sitting on the booth’s floor, a heap of blood and torn fabric.

He closed the distance between them in two powerful strides, and crouched down next to the girl. No need to check her pulse, she was breathing heavily, eyes closed. She was alive but barely. He quickly scanned her to assess her injuries. A bullet through the shoulder. He rested her head against his shoulder, as he searched for the entrance hole. He leaned her back against the glass wall of the booth and her head lolled on one side.

“It’s still inside,” He cursed under his breath.

He lightly slapped her cheek a few times, “Bora, wake up. Wake up.”

She cracked her eyes open at his voice. Her eyes were unfocused and she gazed beyond Jackson’s shoulder.

“I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him.” She muttered, obviously delirious.

“Stay with me.” Jackson picked her up from the ground and eased her in the passenger seat.

“How is she?” Bambam asked through the car’s speaker after they departed.

“Alive. I’m bringing her to the Clay House.”

“That thing still exists?”

“I guess.” Jackson replied evasively with a shrug, even though Bambam couldn’t see him.

“Papa Lee’s at the Cliff,” Bambam announced the arrival of Bora’s father at their Headquarters. “Mark’s here too. And he’s not happy. At all. You know I’m not one to meddle in your business but he’ll want to know where you’re heading next and…”

“Let him,” Jackson’s grip tightened on the steering wheel and he stepped on the gas pedal. He’d deal with Mark later. One problem at a time. His plate was already full of Bora bleeding to death on the seat next to him.

Jackson didn’t drive more than five minutes before reaching the Clay House. It was a safehouse they almost never used. It was also his favorite. The simplicity of the place was much to Jackson’s liking. All their other safehouses were aseptic and unnecessarily huge. The Clay House, more than any other lair they owned, gave off a feeling of safety and comfort. It was strategically built in the curve of one of the mountains surrounding Seoul, near the city yet closed off from it.

He drove up the side of the mountains, a series of tight curves before rolling to a stop in front a three stories high house. Each floor was wider than the last, forming an A-shaped façade. Picture windows adorned each floor, giving a clear view of what was inside. It wasn’t an issue. There weren’t any neighbors in a fifteen kilometers’ radius.

“Stay with me,” Jackson repeated.

Lampshades subdued the lights, creating a gloomy atmosphere as Jackson carried an unconscious Bora inside. He laid her down on her side on the sofa and immediately busied himself in a concise and mastered way. He got back to her, arms full of medical supplies and first aid kits, spreading them on the coffee table.

Bora tried to sit down.

“Wow.” She tried to steady herself and nearly toppled over the sofa as her surroundings swayed and the room they were in seemed to spin on itself.

Jackson’s cold hands brought her back to reality. She was fully conscious now. His hand grazed her shoulder and reached for the strap of her tank top. He hesitated, as if to see if she would let him take it off.

“Do it,” She whispered, teeth clenched and beads of sweat forming on her forehead. The pain in her shoulder had dulled to a light throbbing.

Jackson slid the strap down her shoulder to get full access to the injury. He made sure the fabric didn’t scrap her wound and she appreciated it greatly.

“You might need that,” Jackson said from behind her handing her a rag.

She stuffed it in her mouth and bit down on it, bracing herself for what was to come. She heard a glass bottle popping open, liquid being poured on her shoulder. Jackson used alcohol to disinfect the injury. She bit down a curse on her gag as the burning came back, replacing the throbbing, more intense than before. She bent her back forward, and fisted the plaid covering the sofa.

“Take a deep breath,” Jackson ordered, a hand on her shoulder, the other fiddling with metal tools on the tabletop.

She did. It was cut short when cold replaced hot, metallic pliers pried into her skin, searching for the bullet. She panted and dug her nails in the palm of her hands.

“Almost there,” Jackson said levelly. His voice exuded coolness and self-control. He clearly knew what he was doing. “Hold on.”

She felt him digging the bullet out of its hole for a few agonizing seconds. Then, a resounding glass clinking echoed in the room as the bullet fell on the tabletop.

Jackson bustled about behind her, getting the stuff to clean the open wound.

She released the breath she’s been holding in. Her shoulders sagged in relief and she dropped her head in her hands. 

“He killed her," She whispered, so low Jackson thought he was hearing things.

A silence. Then she spoke again and he knew it was real.

“My whole entire life I’ve been beating myself up over my mother’s death," She continued slowly. "The foolish, little girl who’d distracted her mother while she was driving. And now," She paused, her voice wavering. "I’m told that it wasn’t my fault. That she was murdered, that there’s nothing I could’ve done against that.” She refrained the tears threatening to escape her. “This was probably what I’ve been wanting to hear the most since the day she left me. I’m supposed to have a weight lift itself off my shoulders, I’m supposed to get rid of this guilt.”

Jackson listened while she poured her heart out, getting off her chest what she'd been bottling up for the last 8 years, to a next to complete stranger.

He didn't say anything back to her. She didn't expect nor want him to. He was the last person she wanted to confess to but she couldn’t seem to stop the words from flowing out her mouth. She just wanted to let it all out. He just happened to be there, she was more talking to herself.

"Do you know what guilt feels like?" She asked, not really expecting an answer. "It's like the burning hot weather during summer. Your clothes stick to you in the most uncomfortable way. You just wish to get home to get rid of these clothes.” She paused. “Except with guilt, you can't. It's like a second skin you carry around 24/7. You feel…” She tried to come up with the appropriate word. “ _dirty_. And sometimes you forget, you're enjoying life like anyone else and it dawns on you, comes back hitting you like a cannonball. Taking your breath away and reminding you of what you did, what you are."

She passed her hands through her hair, clearing her view. She focused on the pattern of the plaid. “I don't know which reality is the hardest. I can't decide. And how can I decide, how can I feel better, feel redeemed when she was murdered?"

Her voice broke this time, like it would when bursting out in tears in the middle of a sentence. Her hands grasped her hair, almost pulling it out.

"It’s like I’m stuck in a limbo where I’m a terrible," Her voice broke and she closed her eyes, pressing the heels of her hands against her almond-shaped eyes. "terrible person either way.”

She finished her rant and silence hovered over them, like a fine sheen of ice.

Bora let a few seconds pass before taking a deep, steadying breath.

When she turned around on the sofa, Jackson was staring right at her, eyes troubled.

“Why did you do it?” She asked him blankly.

Jackson was surprised. Her voice had been so raw he was expecting to see tears streaming down her cheeks. Not vacant, almost indifferent eyes. It didn’t sit right. It obliterated her question.

She arched an eyebrow, “The hard drive. Seeing how hell-bent everyone is about keeping it away from me, why did you give it to me?” The more she thought about it, the less Jackson's actions made sense in her eyes. “How did you know I'd come back?”

“I didn't,” He replied, snapping out of it.

“Oh, come on,” She made an  _I'm-not-buying-_ it face. She was too exhausted to keep rolling with the perpetual lies flowing out of his mouth like clockwork. “So you were just going to hand it over to me like that? No questions asked?”

"You couldn't have done much with it. It requires more than a semblance of IT literacy."

Bora's eyes sparkled as a thought flashed through her mind. IT literacy?

 _Woobin. He's an IT expert. That's his_ job _._

The flicker disappeared a second later and Jackson thought he'd hallucinated.

"What was that look?" He asked, squinting his eyes.

"What look?"

"The one you just had."

 _Damn_ , she thought, he really had a fine eye.

“That was me being hungry.” She eluded.

She wasn’t exactly lying. She really was hungry.

Jackson ended up cooking noodles. Just the smell of it made her drool. She stuffed down the whole pan in an unladylike way under Jackson’s scrutinizing gaze. He sat on the stool opposite her, arms crossed and exposing his tattoos. She had yet to make out the pattern of his tattoo. She didn’t really dare staring at it for too long.

“What happened back there?” Jackson suddenly asked.

Bora froze at the unbidden question before resuming eating, ignoring him.

“What did he do to you?” Jackson insisted.

She repressed a shiver, setting her chopsticks down brutally. “Can we talk about it later? Please?”

If he was surprised at her harshness he didn’t show it. Jackson was good at concealing his emotions. He assessed her for a few more seconds before letting go. For now.

“There's a bed up there,” he informed her.

She cast a glance at the ground floor they were in. The open-plan kitchen communicated directly with the living room. Spiral staircase stood in the middle, leading upstairs. "Actually, can I sleep here?"

He looked at her briefly, and then shrugged. “Sure.” He got up and put the dishes away.

She thought Jackson was going to go upstairs and call it a night but he came next to her instead with the first aid kit in hand. She sat up straight, confusion written all over her features.

“My shoulder is fi—”

But instead of going to her shoulder he grabbed her wrist, exposing her forearm and the teeth marks imprinted on her skin, leaving it bruised and tore. He cleaned and wrapped her wound with expert hands. She watched him, all his attention seemingly focused on the task. But she knew he could sense her observing.

She didn’t know he’d paid so close attention.

It was such a superficial wound she could’ve handled it herself. She was used to always taking care of herself. When she worked in her studio, she’d often hurt herself with tools. Be it rusty nails or knives when she felt like experimenting with her painting.

But she didn’t say anything, because it was nice being taken care of for once.

Jackson tied the bandage tightly and cleared the kitchen. She lightly grazed the band-aid with a frown.

“Don’t smear blood on the baby blanket,” He said. “Superstitions run in the family.”

She cleared her throat, snapping out of her thoughts. “The baby blanket?” She asked, confused.

He jerked his chin toward the tartan rug spread on the sofa.

She turned around and frowned. “Why is it called a… oh. Oh God.”

Realization dawned on her. She knew about beliefs tied to an object about women fertility and reproduction. But it was her first-time meeting someone who had one.

“Didn’t peg you as the superstitious type.” She chortled.

“My mother.” He offered as explanation.

She repressed a chuckle and walked to the living room. She folded the tartan rug neatly first thing. She put it away on a corner of the sofa and laid down on another couch. She rested on her intact arm, facing the kitchen.

“Wang.” She called, as she watched Jackson head upstairs. He stopped at the foot of the spiral staircase. Maybe it was because of the lighting but it was her first time noticing the eyebags he adorned.

She felt bad for him.

The last few days hadn’t been easy for either of them. Despite his faults, she owed him.

 “Thank you.”

He nodded and disappeared upstairs.

Once Jackson reached his room, he fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

A story below, Bora tossed and turned for half an hour in her makeshift bed, mulling over the walking paradox that Jackson Wang was. He claimed he hadn’t known she’d come back. And deep down, she believed him. But hadn’t that one man exclaimed ‘ _What did you do_?’ right after Jackson had given her the package? Which only proved he’d done something he shouldn’t have.

It only boiled down to two options in Bora’s eyes: either the content of the hard drive wasn’t as much a big deal as she made it out to be or Jackson had ulterior motives. Very personal motives. Not ones which would serve common purpose but rather ones he pursued for himself.

Either way, she intended on solving the enigma Jackson Wang represented.


	15. Clay House

Birds were already chirping and the sun rising when Bora fell into the arms of Morpheus. She didn't dream and woke up barely a couple hours later, as the sun made its slow and steady ascension towards its zenith.

The early morning light filtered in through the bay windows and the sun bathed her exposed skin in a pool of warmth.

She cracked an eye open and was momentaneously blinded by how luminous the place was. Rubbing the sleep off her eyes, she turned on her back. Her eyes focused where the ceiling met with a massive wooden pillar.

She tried to think about nothing.

It was hard.

The roar of her thoughts assaulted her like a wave she'd tried to keep at bay in the back of her mind. But there was only so much she could do. She felt the upcoming headache heading her way and sat up straight on the sofa.

Too fast.

Her vision blackened out for a few seconds and she felt dizzy. She grabbed her forehead and the sting in her shoulder came as another reminder she couldn't escape the events of the previous night.

She had been shot.

Actually shot.

Her arm was like a weight pulling her down and she groaned. Clenching her teeth, she exhaled softly through her mouth as her gaze drifted towards the bay windows in front of her, beyond the living room.

Her heart almost stopped at the view displayed in front of her through the bay window.

She hadn't noticed in the night but now, as the sun rose in front of her, it gave her the most astounding panoramic view of the mountains outside.

The same mountains she'd always observed from far away, enclosed in the city. Not once, in her eight years living in Seoul, did she venture beyond the limits of the city. She'd never given the city a single chance.

She slowly closed the distance between her and the window, the tip of her fingers grazing the glass and fog forming where her mouth exhaled.

The mountains tops were hidden under the early morning fog and the sunrise painted the sky a light shade of purple. The landscape spread on miles on end, and, beyond, the skyline of Seoul was visible, the Seoul Tower reigning supreme over the city.

The view was like a dream. If it was a painting, she'd title it Purple Haze.

Seoul, the city she loved and hated simultaneously.

The city that'd seen her worst moments.

The city she'd met her best friend in.

The city that'd taken her away from Busan and her childhood and rocked her into adulthood prematurely.

So much love and pain bottled up in one place.

It was breathtaking.

Yes, purple haze definitely suited the view.

"Great view, right?"

Bora's heart missed a beat as she turned around, a hand on her chest. "God."

"Just me," Jackson deadpanned.

He stood at the bottom of the stairs. He'd moved so stealthily that she hadn't heard his footsteps echoing against the wooden floor.

Or maybe she'd just been too engrossed in the view.

She took in his appearance. He looked like he'd gotten a good 8-hours of sleep, she thought.

God damn him.

She cleared her throat and replied, "The view is awesome," she turned back to the breathtaking view and pointed to the Seoul Tower. "It must be magnificent from up there."

"You've never been to the top?" He pried, his eyebrows shooting up to his hairline. She shook her head sharply , not entertaining the idea of delving deeper in her eight years living in Seoul and he simply said, "It is magnificent, indeed."

His voice faded to silence and she tried to ignore the tension and awkwardness building up in the room.

Tried.

And failed.

She could feel him drilling holes through her skull with his eyes. The thought of all the things she'd confessed to him the previous night rushed back to her and she felt heat creeping up her cheeks.

The things she'd been keeping to herself the past eight years. Things she'd never admitted to anyone. She'd admitted it to him.

She wanted to slap herself in the face.

Jackson Wang was no one.

A stranger.

What on earth had she been thinking when she'd poured her heart out like that? She was glad she wasn't facing him, somehow.

She took a deep breath and turned around, striding past him with her eyes locked on the floor. "If we're done, then."

"What happened in the bunker?" His voice caught up to her and she froze midway to the living room. "When you were alone with Seonmin," He added quietly, slowly turning around. "What did he tell you?"

The mechanisms in her head kicked into motion. She realized he had zero idea what she did or didn't know.

He didn't know she knew about the prisoners that South Korea, her country, had mistreated and used like slaves before abandoning them like used rags.

About both their fathers' involvement in it. He didn't know she knew about South Korea's dirtiest secret.

A secret which could potentially lead to war if it was uncovered by the North.

She straightened her back fighting the weight of all the secrets threatening to make her sink down on her knees, and turned around to face him.

"Not much," She lied smoothly, but her shifty eyes gave her away.

A smile curled a corner of Jackson's lips slightly. Bad, bad liar.

He sensed the lie, of course. If he had to name one good aspect of dealing with mafiosos, it was his ability to detect lies, honed and mastered over the years. Still, he moved on to the other question that had been taunting the back of his head. "What did he do to you?"

The bruises and the cuts she'd made in the last days were getting lost on him. He couldn't keep track of who had inflicted her what. Had the reddish blots on her chest been there before Seonmin? Or after?

He felt her tense and saw her shrug stiffly. He found himself observing the way the way her shoulders went up, and then down almost weakly, revealing bony collarbones as the loose shirt slid down her shoulder. He almost wanted to tuck it back in place.

"Hoo Seonmin wanted to know about the hard drive," Jackson's attention snapped back to her face. "He wanted to know what was on it, what I knew about the whole ordeal. I don't think he knows what's on the hard drive if that's what you're worried about."

She wasn't answering his question, but he rolled with it anyway. "What did you tell him?"

She gritted her teeth. "What could I have possibly told him? I couldn't say anything for the simple reason that I don't know anything."

This brought him some relief. He ran over his lip piercing with the tip of his tongue. "Great."

Bora took a sudden step forward, almost choking on her next word. "Great?"

A hint of surprise glimmered in Jackson's eyes but, to his credit, he didn't back off. "You're better off not knowing," He stood his ground. "He would've killed you if you'd just told him. If I had just told you."

Bora saw red. "Stop... bubble-wrapping me!" She strode over to Jackson and clenched her fists to hold off from grabbing his shirt and shaking some sense into him. She didn't want to appear mentally unstable. Even if that was what exactly how she felt at the moment. "I can't go on like that anymore. I'm telling you I want to know, I need to know." The desperation could still be heard in her words, though.

Jackson raised his voice in the slightest. "I'm doing to you what I wish had been done to me."

Keeping her anger from bursting like a volcano she balled her fists and said quietly, "You do realize I'm going to find out, one way or another, right?"

He stared down at her for a few agonizing seconds ever so quiet, and she dared hope she'd swayed him. That is, until he said, "Believe me, Princess, I did you a favor. You'll thank me later."

She wanted to explode and tell him of the few places she thought he could shove his favors up to.

Instead she said, "Don't call me that."

"A princess?" Jackson arched a perfectly shaped brow. "But you are. A princess who lived in a castle of illusions. And your father is the king who maintained the illusion altogether for over two decades. Who would I be to break it all down?"

"My prince in shining armor?" She deadpanned.

Jackson laughed a rich, deep laugh and she rolled her eyes. "I need a shower."

"As much as I agree with this statement," Jackson grabbed the collar of her shirt with two fingers, stopping her as she attempted to turn on her heels. "You're not escaping this conversation that easily. You're going to tell me exactly what Seonmin told you." He said, locking humorless eyes with hers.

That last sentence revealed more about what he wanted than anything he'd said before. He was desperate to know what she knew, and Bora took a sweet pleasure torturing him.

"If you have nothing relevant to tell me, I have nothing to tell you either." Bora spit out, tipping her chin higher.

"Learning fast I see," Jackson smirked.

"I have a good instructor," she retorted, before shaking off his grip.

She'd barely taken two steps away from him when his voice stopped her aggain, "If someone must drag you into this mess I call a life, I swear it won't be me. I won't do that. To you. To anyone."

She whipped around, "You don't seem to understand that it's not your call to make. I'm already into this mess up to the neck. And I'm fed up with the secrets and the lies. You are nothing to me, it's not your job to shield me from my father's lies. I don't care what you'd have wanted for yourself. I'm not you. And you need to stop living vicariously through me."

He kept staring at her even after she finished speaking and she could see the turmoil of his thoughts running in his brown eyes. His eyes ran over her face, "I'm not sorry. I hope you'll understand me one day."

"I highly doubt that."

* * *

 

It turned out that whoever Seonmin worked for, whether the government or another organization, didn't take her disappearance lightly.

With all the APBs going around on national television, Jackson and Bora had had no choice but to alter their looks in order to melt into the crowd.

That's pretty much how they both ended up dying their hair blonde that same evening. Bora was skeptical about it. The color was too bright for her liking. Not to mention, she never really fancied beauty products.

But in the end, it didn't look as bad as she'd braced herself for. Jackson had handed her clothes, namely pants and a plain black t-shirt. It fit her a little too tight and she wondered who it could have belonged to.

One thing that was for sure was that she didn't recognize herself when she stood in front of the mirror. She wouldn't even recognize herself in the street, she thought as she combed her hair in front of the fogged mirror. She couldn't stare for more than a couple seconds before diverting her gaze elsewhere. She couldn't stand looking at herself.

It made her sick in the stomach.

This girl wasn't her. And she didn't know who she was anymore. Her drastic change in looks was the perfect reflection of the crisis going on inside her.

When she was done in the bathroom, she quickly dismissed the idea of going back downstairs to Jackson. She had come to accept that Jackson wouldn't be the key to understand the new world she'd been thrown into. She limited their interactions ever since their argument in the morning.

She felt she was a hair's breadth away from uncovering everything. With or without Jackson's cooperation. Besides, after their altercation, she didn't want to give him the occasion of prying anymore with questions about the previous night.

So, instead of making a right turn and step down the stairs when exiting the bathroom, she went left to explore the first floor.

It consisted of two bedrooms and a bathroom. Another set of stairs was at the end of the hallway. She climbed the few steps and found herself on the last floor. There was a small corridor and only one door.

She entered in the room where the ceiling formed like a triangle. She stood right under the triangle roof of the A-shaped house.

The ceiling wasn't very high and looked more like an attic but with a cocooning kind of feel to it. There was a comfy-looking mattress on the ground. The white sheets were unmade, and she figured it was probably Jackson's room.

She noticed a black handle stick out from underneath the white pillow. Her gaze drifted back to the door to make sure she was alone and when she was, she hesitantly lifted the pillow.

She stopped breathing.

It was the handle of a gun.

Definitely Jackson's room, then.

She let the pillow drop back as it was, realizing her invasion of privacy. She wondered what else he hid there.

Before she could think about it twice, she quietly locked the door. She looked around, not knowing where to start. Hopefully, Jackson had left the hard drive in the room.

She strode over to the other side of the bed where books were stacked. She crouched down and took the first one from the pile.

Poetry.

Upon closer inspection, they were all poetry. Her fingers lightly grazed the cover of the booklet. It was thin and looked ancient. The spine of the book was wrinkled with times and times of reading.

She flipped through the yellowed pages and noticed almost all pages were corned and battered. The book stopped to one dog-eared page, a bookmark.

"Painting is silent poetry," She read the few lines aloud, "and poetry is painting that speaks. Plutarch."

Though Bora had never been really fond of poetry she knew to appreciate any form of art. She was wondering if that was Jackson's go-to literary genre when her attention was diverted to something sticking out of the pile of books. She was about to reach for it when she heard the sound of rolling gravel filter in.

Heart racing, she dropped the book. It fell on the Persian rug with a light thud and she approached the bay window, making sure to stay out of sight from whoever was coming.

A car pulled up in front of the house. It was the beautiful white foreign car she had spotted in front of her house the fateful night she'd eavesdropped on Jackson and her father's conversation. Jackson had had to leave that car near the bank on the day of their encounter.

It was Jackson's car.

Except it wasn't Jackson who stepped out of it. It was a man with a lanky figure, a pale complexion and brown hair, stylishly parted on one side. He wore a white V-neck t-shirt under a dark denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

He closed the distance to the door and she lost sight of him when he reached the threshold beneath her.

* * *

 

"Well, well. If this isn't the one and only Mark Tuan. And he made the whole way from Busan for me. I'm flattered."

Jackson, who was lounging on the couch with a glass in one hand, made no move to greet the newcomer when he made his entrance through the wooden door.

"You disobeyed a direct order," Mark cut to the chase.

Jackson wasn't surprised to see Mark there. Bambam had given him a heads-up the previous night that Mark had started looking into that matter. He'd made the math, and Mark's showing up had just been a matter of time. Still, the proportions the whole ordeal had taken oddly irked him.

"You went and saved her, when I clearly said to let her. I am in charge and I will decide what will become of her. If I say you take the gun and blow her brains out, you take the damn gun and blow her brains out. One thing you will not do, however, is go and challenge my authority. Clear?"

Jackson almost laughed. The only clear thing to the both of them was that Jackson was unfazed by Mark's display of authority.

"You stepped down from leading the Division." Mark growled, pent-up frustration in his voice. "You refused to battle it out with me. So why do you feel the need to pull stunts like that? Or did you do it on purpose? To humiliate me?"

That made Jackson tick. "I'm not a recruit," he uncrossed his legs and walked up to Mark. "I know when to follow orders, but most importantly I know when not to follow orders. Don't put your failures on others. What happened with Seonmin would've happened whether I'd intervened or not."

Mark's nostrils flared but he seemed to remember what he was here for. "Where is she now?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," He grabbed Mark's arm to stop him as he turned to rush upstairs. "Shall I remind you the NIS caught up to her. She won't speak, and I don't know what she knows. We need to tread with care and figure that out, first."

"Well, I do. That idiot of Seonmin told her everything about Silmido."

Jackson seemed more interested in the logistics than what Seonmin had told Bora in the cell. He tilted his head, intrigued. "How do you know?"

Mark remained tight-lipped and said nothing.

"How do you know what he said?" Jackson asked again, more firmly.

"Why should it matter?" Mark burst. "She knows more than she should. She should be dead."

"You made a deal with him, didn't you?" Jackson confronted him. "You sold the girl."

"Yes, I made a deal with Seonmin," Mark took a step forward. "I didn't sell her, I saved her. She keeps her mouth shut, kindly goes home, and she keeps her life."

Jackson scoffed. "You really believe that? They would just let a loose electron wander in the nature with so much information?"

"I don't really care about that kind of stuff. Her father showed up in Busan yesterday, and insists he can protect her. Good for them as long as they stay away from us and from the Division."

"Ah," Jackson took a step back, putting his hands in his pockets and studied Mark's expression.

Mark grit his teeth and balled his fists. "What."

"You weren't left a say in this decision, were you?"

The truth was, Mark hadn't had a say in the decision when Bora's father, Lee Hyunsuk, had stormed into the Operations Room at the Cliff, their black-ops organization's headquarters, demanding a deal be made to spare his daughter.

Mark had had to bend to his will.

Because even though Mark was in charge, the founding fathers of the organization, his, Bora and Jackson's fathers, still held firm authority over the crisis situations.

"If it were up to me, she'd already have been disposed of. She's very lucky to have this loophole. Nobody with an ounce of common sense would turn down that offer."

Jackson scoffed. "You don't know her like I do. She doesn't have that ounce of common sense."

"You've known her for less than a week."

"I've seen enough in these few days to know how she'll react to this," Jackson retorted, getting pissed off. "She's got a skull as thick as concrete and a will of iron, she won't step down to save her life."

"The deal is sealed," Mark cut. "She goes back home, and the rest is up to her father from there. You go get her."

"She'll never agree to that."

Mark feigned a step to the stairs. "Shall I, then?"

Jackson ran a hand over his face and sighed, "Let me take care of this."

He headed upstairs two steps at a time. The mirrors of the bathroom were still fogged with steam but there was no trace of Bora.

He tried to stay level-headed but couldn't help quickening the pace when he went up the stairs to the room located on the last story.

His room.

He opened the door more violently than intended and it took him a while to understand what was going on. His head whipped to the bay window just in time to see Bora sliding down the gutter and landing on the soil level with the house's ground floor.

Then, she ran.

Just when she started running, he heard Mark shout from downstairs, "Stop right here!"

Jackson cursed and followed the path she'd used, jumped out the window and slid down the gutter. He ran after the girl, Mark promptly following him after exiting the house through the doorway.

"Bora, stop!" Jackson screamed.

She did and turned around, the barrel of a gun, his gun, aiming at them.

He had left it in his room and didn't expect to have to use it with her.

Oh, how wrong he'd been.

"Get closer and I'll shoot you!" She threatened.

Mark and Jackson stopped dead in their tracks.

Bora's face was flushed, and her chest heaved up and down as she inspected Mark more closely.

"I don't know who you are," She jerked the gun in his direction. "But I'm not going with you. I'm not going anywhere with anyone."

She'd heard everything. Jackson grit his teeth.

Careless.

They'd been careless.

They'd underestimated her. Again.

"You wouldn't dare," Mark's clear yet ice cold voice rung as he stepped forward.

"You're right," she reached for her back pocket and took the hard drive out.

She had found it between the pile of poetry books. How careless, she had thought when she found the precious jewel. She also felt insulted at how, clearly, she'd been underestimated.

"Get any closer and I'll shoot _it_."


	16. Ghost Unit

“Get any closer and I’ll shoot _it_.”

Mark let out a half-hearted scoff. He didn’t know whether she was bluffing. He cast a sidelong glance at Jackson but the latter’s attention was solely focused on Bora.

“You don’t know how to use that,” Jackson started tentatively.

“Don’t be so sure,” She smiled wickedly, like a cat who had trapped a mouse.

“Look,” Jackson took a careful step forward, “You’re gonna end up hurting yourself.”

Just as he said that, an explosion tore through the summer sky, so sudden and unexpected it felt like the Horn announcing the end of times. The two men flinched as Bora aimed a bullet to the sky, disturbing the peace of the night, awakening whatever dark forces lingered in the shadows of the trees.

She played a dangerous game and she knew it. But she was high on adrenaline, the hormone pumped through her system, altering her normal thinking.

“I swear I’ll do it,” She lied, adjusting her grip on the pistol. She hoped they couldn’t see how her clammy hands trembled. How they slid down the handle of the weapon and the metallic scent of the gun reached her nose. She straightened her back, “Do _not_ test me!”

Her heart was racing, at a rate faster than a bullet’s speed.

_Please, please, God. Don’t make them come any closer._

She’d never shot a soul. Yes, she knew the mechanics of firing a gun. But taking her aim at real flesh and bones people? _Hell, no._

“Okay, okay,” Mark said extending his hands in a calming gesture. “We believe you.”

“Don’t follow me either,” She quickly added before her boldness faded out, not believing what was going on.

“All right. We won’t.”

She took several unsure steps back, not letting go of the gun nor letting them out of her sight. Then, she turned around and broke into a run, disappearing into the shadows of the twilight.

* * *

 

“Great job, Jackson! Just great! Exactly what we needed,” Mark kicked the gravel with rage, sending pebbles flying away. “What are you doing?”

“Calling Bambam,” Jackson replied blankly as he dialed their friend and partner’s number. “Seoul’s stuffed with CCTV cameras. Wherever she is, he’ll find her.”

“I hope for you. Because if this hard drive gets in the wrong hands,” Mark spit, pointing a threatening finger at Jackson’s back. “You’ll be the one paying for the damage.”

Jackson tightened his grip around the phone until he thought the fragile device would break into pieces. He wouldn't play into Mark’s mind games.

He relaxed at Bambam’s voice through the speaker, “You better have a good reason to interrupt my episode of the Bachelorette.”

“Bora escaped from the Clay House with the hard drive containing all the information about the Ghost Unit in her possession about five minutes ago. Is that a good enough reason to you?”

“Again with that girl?” Bambam huffed on the other end. “She’ll be the death of us. What does she hope to do with it, anyway? She’ll never crack the codes. They were developed by the NIS and upgraded by _me_. She simply cannot do it.”

“No, she can’t,” Jackson whispered, his eyes drifting off in the distance. “Not alone.”

 _It requires more than a semblance of IT literacy,_ he’d told the girl barely a night ago. He didn't feel like he was oversharing, then. When Bora’s eyes had shone with a light of understanding, he’d merely dismissed it. He didn’t like where his line of thinking was leading him.

“Run an additional background search on her entourage,” Jackson said, tightening his jaw.

“What am I looking for?”

“Someone with a background in technology. Educational, professional, criminal, anything. This is where she’ll go next.”

The first lesson he’d learn with Bora was that anything and everything was oversharing when it came to her.

* * *

Bora didn't stop running. When she reached the outskirts of Seoul after running down the hill that the Clay House had laid upon, she ran to a phonebooth and dialed a number she knew by heart.

“Please, pick up, pick up, pick up,” She repeated over the phone, constantly looking over her shoulder in fear of Jackson and Mark catching up to her.

_“Hello?”_

“Woobin?” She almost cried of relief when she heard her best friend’s voice. “Woobin, it’s me!”

_“Bora!?”_

“Can you meet me?” She quickly asked.

“ _Wait, wait, wait! What is going on? Everyone’s been looking for you. Where are you? What happened?”_

“Look, now is not the time for questions. Can you meet me, yes or no?”

_“Yes, yes!”_

She stopped before telling him where to meet up. “Promise me not to tell anyone.”

_“But your dad—”_

“ _Especially_ not my dad,” She furrowed her brows. “Promise me!”

Woobin paused for a moment, probably debating what was the best thing to do.  “ _All right,”_ He finally said, _“I won’t tell anyone. Just tell me where we should meet, and I’ll be there.”_

“Remember the bar we used to go to on the weekends?”

_“The one outside the city?”_

“This one. Bring your IT stuff along.”

_“Wh–“_

“Come on, just do it! I’ll explain everything later,” Still he didn’t speak, and she added, “Please, Woobin. You’re the last person I can count on. The only one I can trust.”

Silence.

Then, “ _Fine_ ,” She heard the slamming of a door. “ _I’ll be there in thirty.”_

* * *

 

When Woobin arrived at their meeting spot, he looked around the bar and almost missed Bora. He did a double take when he finally recognized her because she was, well, _blonde_. She was sitting at a booth, and looked distressed. Her leg was bouncing up and down under the table and her nails tapped relentlessly against the table. She kept stealing uncomfortable glances at the bar owner to whom she’d ordered a drink to avoid looking too suspicious. Her eyes widened when she saw Woobin. He strode over to her and she got up, wrapping her arms around him, almost launching herself at him.

“Oh my God, Bora,” He murmured when she pulled back, her eyes moist. “What happened to your face?”

“I’ll explain everything later, but we don’t have time right now. Do you have what I asked you?” She gazed at the duffel bag he’d brought along.

“Yes, let’s sit.” He gently pushed her back down on the bench and swiftly slid on the opposite side of her.

“Tell me what it is,” he said seriously.

“Here,” she pulled a black hard drive from underneath her black jacket. “I need you to open this thing.”

Woobin zeroed in on the hard drive, face unreadable. “Where did you get this?”

“It’s a long story. It was—it was at the bank in a safe my mother left me.”

“Your mother left you a safe?” Woobin asked, flabbergasted.

He knew almost everything about her. Especially the things surrounding her mother’s death. It was that event that brought them together. If her mother had let her a legacy of any kind, he would’ve known.

“Not really,” She started but she didn’t know what to say. Bora never knew about that safe until she’d overheard Jackson and her dad’s conversation. “It was in a safe that belonged to my parents. When I turned 21 I got access to it. But I wasn’t aware of that, I found out by accident.”

“So did you get into it?” Woobin pressed.

“I tried. But that guy—”

“Jackson Wang?” Woobin interrupted her.

She gave him a puzzled look. “How’d you know his name?”

“It was on TV.” Woobin’s eyes burned with a new, murderous light. “The guy they’re looking for with you.”

She nodded slowly. “He beat me to it. He went to the bank before me and I—”

“You what?” He pushed when she cut herself.

She bit her lip. “Long story short, I stole it from him.”

Woobin’s eyes widened.

“And now he’s after me,” she continued unfaltering, “He and his friend were going to sell me out to the man who tried to kill me. Look,” she covered his calloused hands with hers, “I really need your help. I need to find out about what’s on this hard drive.”

She sucked in a deep breath, then she voiced what she hadn’t dared before. “I think the reason my mom was killed… is in that hard drive.”

* * *

 

“Found something.” Bambam’s voice filtered through the car’s speaker.

They’d been in direct communication with Bambam who was at their headquarters. Mark and Jackson drove towards the city waiting for Bambam to indicate them a way to go.

Needless to say, the atmosphere in the car had been tense. Jackson silently fumed at himself for the mistakes he’d kept on piling up. Hopefully, Bambam had been there to fill in the silence with his snide remarks.

“Kim Woobin. 24. Works for Kwon Engineering. He studied computer science at Seoul University. He was valedictorian. He’s on his first job and pretty good at it.”

“He’s three years older than Bora,” Jackson furrowed his brows. “What does he have to do with her?”

“They met in middle school, right after Lee Ji Hye died. Bora was 13, he was 16. They’re still friends to this day, apparently.”

Bambam sent a photo on the car’s screen and Jackson’s knuckles whitened around the steering wheel as he remembered this face from the night he’d met with Bora’s father. This guy had been looking for her.

Jackson ran a hand over his strained face, “Search for him as well on the CCTV. She’ll try to meet with him. Any update on her location?”

“Nope,” Bambam replied. “The Web’s still running. I’ll add our boy to the search, maybe if we run a cross-research we’ll get a result.”

* * *

Woobin furrowed his brow and looked down at their joined hands.

“I know you don’t believe me, Woobin. But this will prove you wrong, it’ll prove everyone wrong. I know it. I know, deep down, that my mother died because she found out what was on that hard drive. She discovered something on here and wanted to reveal it to the world. They got to her before she could do anything. They killed her. The car crash was a set up.”

Woobin looked skeptical but finally mustered the strength to ask, “Who’s _‘they’_?”

“The government.” She replied dead serious.

“Bora…”

“I know it sounds crazy!” She wanted to rip her hair out. “Give me just one chance and you'll understand it all. We both will.”

Woobin disentangled their hands to run them over his face. “How do you know all this?”

“While I was... away,” she started, “The man responsible for her death found me. He wanted the hard drive. But I didn’t have it because Jackson had it. He revealed terrible things to me. About a secret unit that my father led when he served in the army. Stories about dirty laundry and corruption. Whatever he found is on that thing.”

She was just rambling at this point but it didn’t stop Woobin from getting the gist of the whole story. She looked up at him earnestly, her eyes sending a clear message. “Will you help me?”

 

* * *

 

“Guys, I think I found something,” Bambam announced. “That Woobin guy? He just left his apartment downtown Seoul and he’s heading out of the city.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Jackson’s lips, “Send us his location.”

Oh, how he couldn’t wait to put a hand back on Bora.

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you close yet?”

“About as close as when you asked me,” Woobin started sending her a look under his spectacles. “ _Twenty seconds ago_.”

“Sorry, sorry” She extended her hands and tried to relax back in her seat while Woobin busied himself on his computer. She suddenly bent forward. “Actually, you know what? I’m not sorry, how much longer is it going to take?”

“Bora, I already told you, it’s been encrypted by professionals working for the Blue House.”

Her shoulders sagged and she put her head in her hands. “We both know you’d be good enough to work for the Blue House.”

“You—”

Bora looked up when Woobin cut himself in the middle of his sentence. His hands were frozen above the keyboard, his face fathomless.

“Are you in?” She asked in disbelief, her pulse racing. She yanked his laptop around to read the screen. They both leaned over the table.

There was only one folder, titled: _Ghost Unit._

They exchanged a look and Bora’s breath hitched in her throat when she realized she was about to find out what she’d been searching for. What Seonmin searched for, what her mother found and died for. Woobin clicked on the folder and a new page loaded in front of their eyes.

There were dozens of other files with different names and she skimmed through some of them.

_Black Hawk._

_Wrath of God._

_Phoenix._

_Total Chaos._

_Gold._

_Mockingbird._

_Spartacus._

“What is this nonsense?” Bora finally said, brows furrowed. She had expected a lightbulb moment where all the puzzle pieces would piece themselves together. But she just felt more confused.

“Code names,” Woobin let out under his breath. “Military operations code names.”

Woobin clicked on one of the folders. _Cobra_.

A picture showed up first. It was a man in his late-thirties.

“This is Hsin Su,” Woobin explained, and Bora didn’t bother asking him how he knew all that. “He was poised to become the next president of China in the early nineties. He was killed in a car accident while campaigning in the province of Shanghai.”

There were two sections. One was titled “Overview”, and the other “Psychological assessment.”

The overview contained everything from his physical characteristics, to his address, his mother’s maiden name, his age and date of birth, as well as his tracking numbers such as his social insurance number. Every personal information was stored on there down to his blood type.

The psychological assessment broke down into different categories: “Attitude,” “Neuropsychological traits”, “Personality”. They kept scrolling down, and stopped to something that looked like the transcript of a conversation.

_ <BRAVO> I’m approaching Cobra. _

_…_

_ <BRAVO> He’s fighting it. _

_ <OVERSEER> Make it quick. _

_ <BRAVO> Cobra down. _

_ <OVERSEER> Good job. Get back to the safehouse. We’ll be in touch. _

“What…” Bora started, a bit confused. Then, a video appeared. It was a grainy footage from a traffic camera. It started with a 1995 Dodge Spirit car, tendrils of smoke escaping from its engine. She quickly figured it was the car accident that killed the politician.

“I’m approaching Cobra,” a cold voice spoke in Korean amidst the white noise.

A silhouette approached the car and she started connecting the dots in her head. The transcript of the conversation was the transcript of this video.

He reached inside the driver’s open window. One hand on the car’s roof the other pushing against something, no, _someone_ , Hsin Su, inside the car. He was choking him to death.

“He’s fighting it.”

An icy voice replied cutting like steel, “Make it quick.”

Overseer.

Then, Bravo relaxed his hold on the man. “Cobra down,” he declared.

“Good job. Get back to the safehouse. We’ll be in touch.”

He scurried away from the scene, and the car exploded promptly after.

She was still focused on the fire engulfing the car when she heard _him_.

“Well, well. What do we have here?”

Bora knew who it was without looking.

Unfortunately, Woobin did too with only one glance.

“Y _ou,_ ” He jumped from his seat and grabbed Jackson by the collar. Tried to, at least. Mark appeared between them faster than Woobin could see. A split second later he was back down on his ass on the plush leather seats of the booth.

Bora intervened, forming a barricade to protect her best friend, “ _Let him go_ ,” she tried to keep her voice steady, “Your business is with me.”

Jackson watched her, implacable. He stared her down, cold as the winter wind. She felt nothing of the somewhat reassuring feeling his eyes had wrapped her in the previous night as he’d bandaged her wounds. Maybe she’d made it all up.

“You should’ve thought about that earlier,” he articulated each word for her to hear. “Our business is with him too, now. I’m done playing with you, girl. We do it my way now. You’re all coming.” He grabbed Bora’s arm so hard, she was sure she’d have another bruise the following day. He frowned down at her and murmured in mock disappointment and for her ears only, “Here I thought we’d made some progress in our relationship.”

“ _Don’t touch her_ ,” Woobin seethed with a tentative step in their direction. Jackson slowly turned his head to the boy, eyes like molten lava and Woobin almost wanted to cringe back.

“I’m good,” she assured her friend with a forced smile.

“You have other problems to worry about,” Mark cut in, grabbing Woobin in turn.

“Help!” Woobin cried out in the general direction of the bar.

But there was no customer, apart from the barman to whom Mark had already slid an envelope thick with cash. The barman simply nodded at Mark after the latter made him a gesture and went back to his business.

“Save your breath, genius,” Mark yanked him to the exit, “This isn’t Gangnam. The only help you’ll get is mine.”

Jackson gathered Woobin’s equipment in the bag and slung it over his shoulder. His other hand still gripping Bora, he led her to the back entrance.

“Please, Wang. I beg you,” she said under her breath, wringing in his grip to face him even as he pushed her forward in the small corridor leading to the kitchens. “Let him off. Just him.”

He ignored her as they crossed the kitchens, then hauled the two friends to the white car in the back alley.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” she begged in a last attempt when they were next to the car and Mark was busy getting a swearing Woobin into the back seat on the other side.

Jackson pushed her face first against the car door. “Tempting,” he whispered in her ear, making her body tingle and flinch at the same time.

He grabbed her wrists and before she could realize what was happening to her, he had her hands locked in metallic handcuffs. Then, he had a blindfold secured over her eyes.

“Are you serious?” She shouted.

He didn’t bother reply and instead shoved her inside before slamming the door shut.


	17. The Cliff

They had been driving southward for hours, yet Bora eerily kept silent. Mark who hadn’t spent as much time in her presence as Jackson didn’t pay any heed to this fact. Jackson, however, was set off. After realizing her pleas to release the male sitting next to her fell on deaf ears, she’d just given up.

That was what didn’t sit right with Jackson. He wouldn’t go as far as to say he missed her talking but he definitely didn’t like her keeping silent. He expected her to ask more questions about the hard drive. A daunting thought then formed at the back of his head, one he didn’t want to consider possible. Her silence irked him more than her constant pestering and Jackson easily concluded that she had already obtained what she was looking for.

The possibility of her, or anyone for that matter, cracking their way into the tiny yet overprotected black hard drive drove him mad. It should have been impossible but he had a hunch that she had done it. Not only that, but she had involved another civilian. A new liability. And, like she’d acquired a special and lethal weapon they better watch out for, Bora remained silent.

 

* * *

 

Bora had moved to Seoul with her father, Lee Hyun Suk, at the tender age of thirteen. Now, she had turned twenty one and she had not set foot back in the city of Busan in eight whole years. Nonetheless, she would never forget the smell she so associated with home. It was humid but fresh, salty but light. The smell of the sea was one she would never forget no matter how many years passed. That smell had rocked her childhood spent on the coast and would die with her when she would be old and crumpled.

_If I make it that far._

She was first hit with the gust of wind that ripped into the car when someone rolled a window down. The murkiness coated her skin and the ocean air filled her nose. _Home_.

“Are we in Busan?” Bora was surprised to hear a smile in her voice.

A silence stretched in the car during which Mark and Jackson no doubt exchanged looks.

“Yes,” Jackson finally conceded.

She didn’t need any confirmation. She could feel it down to her bones that she was in Busan. It was like she had a special link to this place. All she could repeat again, and again in her head was, _I’m home._ The joy bubbling up inside her and threatening to erupt like a volcano felt wrong, yet right at the same time.

Their vehicle slowed then rolled to a complete stop. Someone opened her door and she was in Jackson’s grip again. She gritted her teeth at the pressure he purposefully applied on her arm, but she refused to complain. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her in pain. She wouldn’t give anyone that satisfaction.

“Welcome to the Cliff,” Mark muttered behind her.

Now, she heard it. Loud and clear. The waves crashing against rocks. She swore she felt the ocean sprinkle mist on her face. The air was still suffocatingly hot even in the middle of the night and the fresh drops were like a beacon in the dark.

“Don’t tell me,” Bora deadpanned as large, uneven stones crunched under her feet, “we’re on a cliff and you named your super secret base of operations after it?”

In response, she was pushed forward by Jackson. As she walked, she tripped several times on the steep, irregular, rocky path. She heard Jackson snigger just as many times. She bit her tongue to refrain curses from tumbling out. Her breathing was embarrassingly labored even though they’d just walked a few feet. This might’ve been the most inappropriate moment to point out she better check-in with a doctor in the near future.

When they reached a set of steps, Jackson lifted Bora off the ground as though she was the weight of a handful of sand. He snickered when she started grumbling about unsolicited help once he put her back on her feet. “Seeing your stellar balance, I was afraid you wouldn’t survive a set a stairs,” Jackson said, his voice holding thin-veiled mockery. He might or might not have found unnerving Bora amusing.

“How considerate of you,” she seethed with anger, her head whipping to what she guessed was his silhouette walking next to her beneath the blindfold.

He pushed her forth again impatiently and she let out a string of curses to which he replied, “All I hear is yapping,” then, he proceeded to imitate a yapping puppy in her ear.

Bora flinched and bristled, “Prick.”

But a slight part of her couldn’t bring herself to feel genuinely annoyed, because, no matter the circumstances, she was home. And in that brief instant, it was all that mattered.

* * *

 

Despite being blindfolded, Woobin and Bora felt the change of setting. The air cooled down by a few degrees and the freshness of air conditioning kissed their skin in a pleasant way, a welcome relief from the unrelenting heat and the sweat that coated them. The place they stepped in was deathly silent apart from the echo of their steps against the marble floor.

Bora let herself be led until she realized they had stepped in an elevator. She didn’t understand until the cabin kicked into motion and started going down, down. It was too late to back away. Her heart raced. She wanted to reach for her blindfold but was stopped short by the handcuffs. The anxiety building up in her chest grew by ten like a monster growing two heads when you cut one.

She was cuffed.

In a cramped space.

“Bora,” said someone, breaking the silence, “You’re okay.”

An affirmation. A reassurement.

She nodded even though Woobin couldn’t see her. Being her friend since she was thirteen, he’d gotten around to know her many facets and learned to be watchful. He couldn’t see her, feel her, but he knew exactly what was going on inside her head.

 _I’m okay, I’m okay_ , she kept repeating herself, even as an inner voice told her otherwise. She swallowed hard, fighting against the tightness in her chest that kept her heart in a tight leash. What was it she was supposed to do when her claustrophobia kicked in? She couldn’t remember.

Jackson’s grip around her arm loosened and she heard him say, “What’s going on?” His voice came off distant like they were on opposite ends of a tunnel. She could only focus on Woobin’s voice. He needed her undivided attention.

_Focus, focus, focus._

“Countdown, Bora,” Woobin said calmly, completely ignoring Jackson.

_Right, countdown. That’s right. Countdown from 100 by threes._

She nodded to herself and took a deep breath.

_100…_

_What if they got stuck?_ Her inner voice flashed a thousand worst case scenarios into her brain. Vivid images of what could happen; a free fall, a power outage, a certain death.

_97…_

She exhaled and the leash holding her heart in an iron grip loosened. They must be under sea level by now.

_94..._

The elevator came to a sudden stop, shaking her stomach sideways. She was going to throw up. The elevator steadied, the metal doors slid open with a soft _ding_ and she lurched forward, toward the fresh air. She’d made it out. She was barely recovering from her rollercoaster of emotions when what she heard made her stop dead in her tracks.

It was a crowd. Maybe not a crowd, per se, but no less than thirty people, she was sure of it. Boys, girls, giggling and chatting. Metal against metal. Wood against wood. The sounds echoed like they were in some sort of deep chamber with infinite space. Before she could focus on the sounds, they died down, but she still felt oddly _observed_. She felt like she’d walked in uninvited on a room full of people and everyone had stopped to look at her.

“What is this?” She asked out loud, her palms turning clammy. She wanted to rip that blindfold off. “Wang.” She shrunk back in his chest. He pushed her forward and made her walk straight ahead and she could feel the whole room staring right at her as they pushed through the crowd. The people gathered murmured in their wake.

“It’s her,” a boy murmured, and Bora’s head automatically pivoted in his direction.

A strong, confident feminine voice cut through the silence and the whispers, “Well done, guys.”

Not Jackson nor Mark replied. They crossed whatever room they’d just been in and hauled her away to another corridor and deeper in the confines of the complex. On they went, until they reached a much colder place and Bora knew it was the end of the journey.

They stopped for a handful of seconds and Bora was confused as she felt hesitation coming from the man beside her. Her thoughts were short-lived when he pushed her forth again. They covered a few more feet before Jackson pushed her inside and toyed with the shackles at her wrists. As soon as her hands were freed, she tore her blindfold away and turned around. At the same time, glistening metal bars slid down from the ceiling and sunk into holes on the concrete floor, locking her away from Jackson.

She was behind bars, literally. And alone.

In one powerful stride, she launched herself to the bars. “Where. Is. He.” She saw red. She hadn’t noticed when, exactly, she’d been separated from Woobin. Was it when they stepped out the elevator? When they crossed the room full of people? Or did they just separate them now?

“Who?” Jackson asked, mock confusion on his features.

“I will gut you,” she uttered her promise like a death sentence. “Don’t you dare hurt him, Wang.”

He shot her an unimpressed look turned his back on her. He walked off the corridor leading to her cell and rounded a corner, disappearing. The bright white lights went out.

“Wang!” She shouted after him, despair seeping in with the darkness. “I know you can hear me! Where is he? Get me out of here!” She kicked at the metallic bars. “Get. Me. Out. Of. Here!” She yelled each word punctuated by a kick. “WANG!”

* * *

 

Bora’s screams still rang in Jackson’s ears when he stormed into the Operations Room overlooking the Training Hall. The walls of the O.R., as they liked to abbreviate it, were made out of reflective coated glass. From the O.R., they could monitor everything happening down in the pit that was the Training Hall, through a one-way mirror.

The Hall hosted Division’s recruits training times and daily meetups, like the agora of an antique city. It was carved from the rock of the cliff that the whole Headquarters were tucked beneath. Right now, the recruits were not training. The weights, the staffs, the guns and the knives were discarded, as everyone huddled in the center of the room engaged in heated conversations, everyone speaking over one another like excited children. There was no doubt in Jackson’s mind that Lee’s golden girl and the boy he and Mark had brought in tow were the subject of all talks.

Back up in the Operations Room, flat screens set on the walls basked the room in a bluish hue, and in the middle of the room was an oval-shaped table with a touch screen they used to prep their missions. Bambam’s worktable itself was surrounded by more high-end screens and keyboards of what could only be the most expensive ranges and brands on Earth.

He was in deep concentration eyes staring at the multiple screens, his hands flying above the keyboards. His eyes travelled between two screens. He was so focused he didn’t notice Jackson stepping in the O.R. through the sliding glass pane.

“The entrance is clear. You have two minutes before the next guards take their shift,” Bambam said into a microphone. “Remember, go in, take the file, go out. Don’t linger, don’t think. This is a simple mission.” Bambam took off the earpiece and relaxed back in his seat.

Jackson approached him and monitored the screens plastered all around. One displayed the IDs and personal data of two recruits, a girl and a boy, who had been sent on the field for a mission that evening. Another screen was a blueprint of the location of the mission. It was a hanok, a traditional Korean house which must belong to a wealthy family.

Jackson analyzed the face of one of the recruits and he sighed out loud when he recognized her. It was a girl. She was young. Younger than Bora, and probably the age of his sister around eighteen. She had auburn hair and a fair complexion with an overall innocent looking face. Too innocent.

Jackson had seen her training. She was too slow, too clumsy, too weak. And if there was one thing Division lived by it was this: there was no place for the weak. Jackson pinched the bridge of his nose. “Kim Yerim,” More of a statement than a question.

“Jesus!” Bambam flinched in his seat, the energy drink he always had on his desk toppling over and spilling on a keyboard. He jumped up from his seat, his hands pulling back his hair before extending hopelessly toward the mess, “You killed Bonnie!” He trudged to the other side of the room and came back with paper towels, “I told you to _stop doing that!_ ” he spit as he untangled wires and unplugged the destroyed keyboard, “I hope you sleep soundly knowing you ripped lovers apart from each other.”

“It’s been five years.”

“It could have been eighty-four years that I wouldn’t care!” Bambam settled back in his chair. “I’ll never get used to this ninja bullshit. How about you knock next time?”

“I’ll give it a thought,” Jackson said. He jerked his chin toward the screen where the two recruits were still in the process of completing their mission, “What’s the catch this time?”

“Her companion,” Bambam pointed to the boy, a talented recruit of two years whose acrobatics skills and stealth revealed to be precious assets to Division, “is gonna lose her. Aera is his escape route.” He pointed to another screen where a van waited beneath an oak tree in the road down the house. Behind the wheel, he could make out Aera’s shape. “He’ll make sure she gets caught in the process. From here on, I have Jimin and Jae on it. They’ll take her away and make her believe the mission went awry and that she was captured.”

“This is messed up,” Jackson breathed out.

“It’s just a little scare.”

Jackson shook his head. “You know it’s not.”

“It builds the character,” a new voice intervened. It took Jackson a lot of willpower not to roll his eyes when Mark strutted into the O.R., “even you should know that by now, practice makes perfect and skills are acquired with experience.”

Mark walked like he owned the place, which he did. He had locked Woobin away in another cell and came back with all their fathers. Jackson paused when he turned to the newcomers. It was the first time he saw the three acolytes and founders of the Division together. They painted a strange picture.

Mark’s father, Jun Tuan, was the tallest of them all. The most striking feature of his undoubtedly was the scar he adorned. It ran from the top of his bald skull to the tip of his chin in length, and from his left ear to his nose in width. The whole left side of his face was an open wound--burned in a fire which had claimed the life of Mark’s mother. The scar, which could have been handled with some reconstructive surgery, remained years later as a reminder of the cost of Tuan’s life choices.

Jackson’s own father didn’t come unscathed from his extensive time in the crime industry either. His gait was off, his foot twisted at an odd angle. He had a severe limp that forced him to walk with a cane everywhere he went.

Unsurprisingly, Bora’s father was the only one left unharmed. Though he bore no physical injuries, Jackson knew the psychological wound of losing his wife, Bora’s mother, couldn’t compare to any physical pain. Lee Hyunsuk had left Division when Jackson and Mark were in their teen years, and even then his appearances had started being scarce. Occasionally, when Jackson was around fifteen, he would catch the man engaged in a heated argument with his father as well as Mark’s.

Jackson would catch figments of fights hidden behind the door of his father’s study. He didn’t know at the time but that was the beginning of the end for the three partners in crime. Lee Hyunsuk chose his daughter over Division after his wife died. He fled for his thirteen year old’s life.

Jackson was sixteen, Mark eighteen. It was around that time that their trainings had intensified. The death of Bora’s mother and the desertion of Mr. Lee brought back one harsh reality for the fathers of the two boys and, in their fear to disappear, they only wanted one thing: for their sons to take over and keep the business prosper.

“Survival of the fittest, call it whatever you wish. You saw her in training yourself. She needs to understand she’s been granted a second shot at life that very few get. She must get in her head that, in our world, it’s either her or _them_.”

 _Our world_. Division’s bleak world.

It was always the same pattern. Division found recruits, never the other way around. Lost causes turned into killing machines who were sold the second chance tale. They recruited young, lost Korean youth with no family and nothing to lose off the streets. Division shaped them into new beings, pit them against the world, pushed them to their limits. Then, they plucked the weaklings out of the lot. Pushed those even more until they’d get in line and do Division’s bidding or see themselves eliminated.

Yerim was a weakling.

On her last mission, she had not been able to land a killing blow. Her hesitation brought her whole team to failure. Missions were not a Training Hall. They weren’t allowed to fail on the field. And Yerim would learn that the hard way.

They’d keep her locked up in a staged kidnapping until she broke down and landed that killing blow she hadn’t been able to on the field. That was Division’s way of telling her, if you can’t make it, we don’t need you. Because that was the type of leader Mark had chosen to be after being handed the reins over.

Jackson’s eyes fell to the screen. In the time of their conversation, Yerim’s companion had made a run to the van stationed by the oak tree where Aera waited for him. Yerim was still inside the hanok, barely grasping the change of situation. Two bulky figures advanced to her position on the maru’s wooden floor. She tried to make a run outside but in a few strides, Jae and Jimin caught up with her. They slammed her down on the floor. Even through the grainy footage, Jackson could see the girl trembling as she looked up at the two men. One of them grabbed her by her hair. She scratched and thrashed but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough for Division.

She was like a mouse trapped in a cat’s paws.

 


	18. Division

Jackson tore his eyes away from the screen and tried to shove away the best he could the images of what was going to happen to Kim Yerim in a few hours to the back of his mind. There was nothing he could do anyway.

“Jackson,” Mr. Tuan, something close to nervousness transpiring in his tone, “do you have the hard drive?”

“I do,” His arm heavy like a dead weight, Jackson pulled up the computer and hard drive he had confiscated from Bora and her friend in the diner. He emptied the content on Bambam’s desk to everyone’s relief. “But you won’t like the news I have. Bora and her friend cracked their way inside. They pulled the files.”

“Did they see what was inside?”

“My guess is they did.”

Mr. Tuan grunted and Bora’s father swore colorfully.

“No,” Bambam suddenly said, getting up from his seat. “It requires special coding skills that aren't taught in any school. Virtually no one who wasn't involved in the process of the coding from its early stages can tamper with this kind of technology.”

Jackson didn’t trust a lot of people but he trusted Bambam. Chances were high the boy was the highest skilled hacker in Asia, if not the world. He had been in a dark place when Jackson had saved his life during a mission and had hauled him all the way from Thailand to Busan. It was a wonder to Jackson how Bambam managed to remain a boy at heart despite all that he’d endured. Jackson had rarely seen Bambam so baffled by anything in his time working for the Division.

“You’re telling me we don’t have one, but two civilians holding classified information?” Mark gripped the edge of Bambam’s desk. “Yet we’re still debating whether we should keep her here and share with her every last bit of information on Division? Why not make a press conference and release an official statement while we’re at it? Just to see how much more damage she can do. The Division I know would already have gotten rid of that problem.”

That’s when Bora’s father snapped and Mark found himself pinned against a pillar, Mr. Lee’s arm over his throat blocking his airways. “Look at me, boy,” he snarled, and Jackson had to admit that for a man his age he sure did keep some of his military training, “stare hard and long at my face. We created Division from our blood and sweat. Bora isn’t just any civilian, she’s my daughter. If you touch if only one hair on my daughter’s head I’ll gut you and dump your sorry carcass in a sewer. Understand?” There was a silence, long and deep enough to hear a fly. “ _Understand?_ ” Mr. Lee reiterated. Mark finally managed an imperceptible nod. “ _Good._ ”

Jackson’s father knocked his cane twice on the floor. “That is enough,”

Mr. Lee and Mark parted. The former was still fuming and the latter kept his eyes trained on the floor.

“You know I’ve always respected your choices,” Mr. Wang said, “When you stepped down, kept your family away from this business, Fan and I supported you. But the boy has a point, it’s become obvious that Bora is becoming too much of a hindrance. You must control her.”

“Bora is off-limits. You.” Jackson tensed when the man pointed at him. “Bring her here and let's be done with it.”

Jackson bowed and retreated to the glass panes.

“The rest of you can get lost.”

* * *

 

The euphoria of being back home had ebbed away long ago. Bora only felt empty. She didn’t know how long they kept her locked up but she found the darkness of her prison cell to be perfect to reflect on the past couple of days. More specifically, reflect on what she had found out about the Ghost Unit.

She laid on her back on the concrete floor and raised an arm above her face. She made out the wraith-like shape of her hand in the dark. Now, she understood what the Ghost Unit meant and why Jackson had worked so hard to keep her away from it. His crypted words made so much more sense now.

_“If someone must drag you into this mess I call a life, I swear it won’t be me. I won’t do that. To you. To anyone.”_

She had done that to herself and to Woobin. She had endangered both their lives in her blind quest to find the truth. She’d disregarded any possible consequences for Woobin. Regret picked at her like a vulture feasting on a corpse. If she had thought it through, getting her friend involved in this mess was the last thing she’d have done.

_Stupid._

She was left with no clue on Woobin’s whereabouts. She wouldn’t let them harm him. She would make them understand he was trustworthy. He wouldn’t tell anyone about the Ghost Unit as long as he was left unharmed. Would he? Would _she? Should_ she? She pondered on the matter, prying it open and playing with it, delving in the depths of it until something pounded in her skull.

Would they even let her live to do anything else? Yes, they had to. She knew her father, as much she resented him now, wouldn’t let them harm her. It was why Jackson had bothered crossing the country and back.

She understood more of Jackson’s motives as well. He had tried to warn her. But she still couldn’t bring herself to feel any empathy for him. If she listened closely she could still hear the lingering cracking sound of a spine breaking in two pieces. She shuddered. “ _Merciless bastard._ ”

“I hope you’re not talking about me.”

Bora’s heart missed a beat and her hand went to shield her vision just as the lights switched on.

“ _Son of a--_ ” she started under her breath. Frowning, she sat up on the splotch of concrete her body had warmed. She brought a hand to her skull and glared up at Jackson. She didn’t let an inkling of surprise cross her face at his stealthy approach though he knew better.

She jerked her head in his direction, “You’re worse than that.”

“You just never stop, do you?”

“I have it on good authority you’d love it too much,” she bit back.

“False,” a smile tugged at Jackson’s lips but didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m always up for a challenge.”

“I can see that,” she cast a look around her cell.  “Did you come to have a tour of my new place or just to wallow in the sheer pleasure of witnessing my suffering?”

He crouched down to be level with her face, bracing his forearms on his knees. Her eyes were instantly drawn to his muscular arms where his tattoo snaked up his tan skin in whorls of black ink that weren’t mere patterns, she realized, but Chinese characters.

“Why are you so angry all the time?” he finally asked, his voice velvety soft.

Her eyes snapped back to his face. His head was tilted at an angle and he frowned, deep in thought. His thumb rubbed his lower lip like he was trying to resolve a particularly challenging math equation. Being looked at that way felt incredibly unsettling and she decided she didn’t like it.

“I’m perfectly calm, Wang,” she bit the inside of her cheek.

“It doesn’t look like it, Princess,” he said mimicking her tone.

“I told you to stop calling me that.”

“See? Sizzling anger.”

“ _You_ make me angry.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

She yanked on the leash holding her temper. “What is that supposed to mean?” she said slowly, her voice harsh.

He shrugged. “Nothing,” But he still looked at her with the same intensity. “Nothing at all.” He stood up and walked to the wall on the side of her cell.  “Get up. We’re going.”

“Where?”

He tapped on something and the bars of her cell retracted in the ceiling with a cutting steel sound. “To your beloved genitor.”

She balled her fists in anger. Her father had sent Jackson, not even bothering to come get her himself. A dark smile curled her mouth and she didn’t know why she uttered her next words. Maybe Jackson was the perfect outlet for her anger. “Such a good dog.”

He didn’t even acknowledge her insult and it unnerved her even more. His cold, calculated calm was unnerving. She wanted to see him angry, because it wasn’t fair that she was the only one being smothered by all her negative emotions. She wanted to break him, see him as broken and miserable as she felt.

“What, no blindfold?” She spat after him, when he was halfway through the hallway leading out of the cells.

He stopped dead and turned around, the picture of nonchalance, “Why? Did you like it?”

She almost choked but reigned in her temper. He was treading dangerous waters. Her lips twitched faintly, “What if I did?” she replied sweetly, catching up to him. Two could play this game.

Jackson merely chuckled under his breath behind her, utterly unfazed. “Then I wouldn't expect any less from you. Unfortunately we won't have the pleasure to indulge in such practices again today,” he called from behind as she passed by him, then added, “but maybe in the future.”

“Yes,” she chortled, “in a future lifetime, maybe. Are you going to show the way?” She turned around impatiently.

“These are our last moments together,” he said, humor glinting in his eyes -- the happiest looking she’d ever seen him, “won't you at least pretend to feel sad over our parting?”

She drew a faint scowl to her lips, “It wasn’t a pleasure meeting you.”

“Likewise, Princess.”

* * *

 

Jackson guided Bora through a maze of corridors and she made a mental map of it as they walked. She thought it looked a lot like a fortress. Her stomach twisted at the thought of having to ride the forsaken elevator once more.

She crossed her fingers, hoping they would use emergency staircases. Her hopes fell short when she found herself in front of the elevator. She dug her nails in her palms.

“Aren’t there stairs?”

“It’s nine floors up,” he stepped inside.

“I don’t mind.”

Jackson raised an eyebrow. “I do,” he looked ready to get her in kicking and screaming through the door. He crossed his arms over his chest, “You’ll never get over your fears if you don’t face them.”

“Who told you I wanted to get over them?”

Jackson pressed his lips and they engaged in a staring contest.

 _Damn,_ Bora thought, _he is good at this, the jerk._

Bora finally huffed, wanting to sob inwardly, and tried to rationalize. She was a grown woman for God’s sake. She took a deep breath, threw her shoulders back and stepped in the elevator. Her hand instantly found the rail and she squeezed it hard.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Jackson cast her a glance from the corner of his eye. “Do you have to be so dramatic all the time?”

“I’m not. I’m claustrophobic. Do you have to be such an insensitive jerk all the time?”

“Yes.”

She didn’t reply, too focused on controlling her breathing. The moment she feared most, when the elevator slowed then stopped before the opening of the doors, seemed to stretch longer than usual before the soft _ding_ of the machine resonated. Bora released a breath she’d been holding.

“See? We lived,” Jackson deadpanned, stalking out of the elevator backwards.

She shot him a glare and he turned his back to her as he headed for an opaque glass door with a flag pole on the side carrying the South Korean flag. They were in a lobby that looked like they were in a governmental facility similar to the ones in movies with carpeting and leather seats. It looked nothing like the unwelcoming corridors snaking nine floors below.

The opaque doors slid open before them. Her breath caught in her throat. The room was huge. The ceiling towered probably fifty meters high, the wall opposite the entrance wasn’t a wall but a large window  which gave a panoramic view of what looked like a cave that dipped low. It was like the room she had entered was suspended mid-air. It took a lot of self control not to run to the window and peer to see what laid below.

She could see several levels of balconies, each one delimited by a silver railing. The balconies were circle-shaped and the walls surrounding them were carved out of bare black stone. Whatever the place she was watching from was, it was perched high like an observation deck so much so that from her position she couldn’t see what was down there. It towered above the rest like a watchful Eye.

She froze when her eyes fell on a stubby silhouette standing in the middle of the room, waiting for her. Bora’s father stilled at the sight of his daughter. He cast a dismissing glance at the man behind her and Bora didn’t need to turn around to know Jackson had exited the room with his usual stealth.

Bora trained her eyes on her father. She opened her mouth and closed it several times, her throat squeezing each time she’d try to get a word out.

“ _Who are you_.” she finally uttered the words that had been haunting her. Her voice was breathless, like she’d run a marathon. Pure, unfiltered rage seized her as she looked at her father with new eyes.

“I’m your father. This doesn't change.”

“ _Don’t_. Don’t you dare,” Bora’s voice cut like steel as she stabbed a finger in his direction. “You are no father to me. Did you ever plan on telling me anything at all? I bet you not.”

He shook his head. “No, I knew this would happen eventually. Even though I hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”

“And what is _this?_ ” She engulfed the room with a sweep of her arm, and he knew what she meant by _this_. This encompassed everything, from the hard drive, to the place they were in now. With a start, she looked at what she hadn’t noticed upon her arrival, too focused on the panoramic view.

A circle-shaped desk was the centerpiece of the room, upped on a platform. Behind it, stood a huge oval-shaped table. The length of it alone covered half the room and it was covered with piles of files and folders.

“There is an explanation for everything, if you would just listen.”

Her eyes snapped back to the man before her, “I had twenty-one years to listen and you had twenty-one years to speak.”

He raised a hand like he was going to reach for her but thought better of it. “I know you’re angry, and rightly so, but you need to listen to this. Hopefully you’ll understand more of my motives.”

He motioned to one of the chairs surrounding the oval shaped table on the other side of the room, a silent invitation for her to sit. She chewed on her cheek but remained where she was.

Her father just sighed. “The place you’re in right now is the Operations Room, the center of command of what we call the Cliff. The Cliff is the headquarters to an organization we created over two decades ago with two fellow army soldiers. The organization is known as the Division. This is one of my greatest creation and also one of my greatest shame.”

“What does this organization do?” She asked, even though she pertinently knew the “Division” was no NGO advocating for global peace.

Lee Hyunsuk didn’t reply off the start. He ran a hand over his face, bracing himself for whatever he was about to reveal. For a moment, he looked _old_ , like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I guess the time really has come,” he said under his breath, speaking more to himself. His eyes took in the room like he was seeing it for the first time. The realization that, from this moment on, nothing would be the same cast shadows on his face like a net in the ocean. “I will… I will tell you.”

And he did. He started with the squadron he’d trained on Silmido Island. She already knew of that of course. Her encounter with Hoo Seonmin was still a fresh memory and she didn’t think she would ever forget. It was a tipping point in her personal history.

“When the President ordered me to wipe out an entire section… I just couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to kill them. So I put into motion a plan I’d been working on for years. I had discovered classified information about a so-called “Ghost Unit.” That’s what’s on the hard drive.”

The silhouette of Bravo choking Hsin Su flashed through her mind and she shuddered.  Her father explained what she’d guessed. She had seen the details of one of the many classified missions ordered by the President and executed by a secret agency called the Ghost Unit.

The Ghost Unit wasn’t anything legal, she soon learned.

“Even agents working for the secret services on important missions dealing with the North don't know of its existence. The Ghost Unit is a black operations agency. In essence, it means that the real organization behind the operation is always concealed in the shadows. Finding a scapegoat and covering the tracks requires a good amount of deception and cunning. Many intelligence services all over the world run black ops -- FBI, MI6, KGB. The President sends agents on special, classified and sometimes personal missions. Then, his right-hand man, the Overseer, would wipe out the team assigned after they completed the mission. Brutal, ruthless. We stored it all on hard drives.”

“Brutal yet you didn’t denounce it.”

“We were power-hungry. We saw an opportunity, a weakness. You have no idea how much I regret it, Bora.” He put his head between his hands then took a deep breath before carrying on, “I brewed a plan in my mind. I used the President’s weakness as leverage to create the Division. The Division became powerful within the underworld. Our agents are hired by governments, private companies, and individuals alike. We work with all types of crime lords. Anyone who can afford that sort of money and keep their mouth shut. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. The Division has become too big, bigger than you and I. Stopping it now would be a disaster. Explaining _this_ would mean explaining the Ghost Unit. Can you even imagine what would happen if this was uncovered? The Ghost Unit is still active to this day. It would spark a global outrage.”

“It’s still active?” Bora croaked out.

“It has been passed down generations of rulers, like some presidential tradition. I suspect the Ghost Unit was formed during the Great War against North Korea in the early fifties. I investigated it for years. I started noticing a pattern: opponents that mysteriously disappeared, events that seemed… _off_. Many other presidents have come and gone after we uncovered the scheme, but we all keep an agreement. They turn a blind eye to the Division, we do the same of the Ghost Unit.”

Bora covered her mouth with her hands. She felt like throwing up. “You created a replica of Silmido. How is the Division any better than this damned killing squad? Good for nothings hauled off the streets and trained to become your personal weapons in your crime waging. How is any of that okay? How can you condone that?”

“When your mother—” He paused. “When your mother died, I knew I had to get you as far away as possible from this life. And I—I tried. But I failed.”

“She wasn’t schizophrenic, was she?” Bora said, tremors in her voice. “She just found out about the Ghost Unit. She took me with her when she was going to reveal it to a journalist. That’s why she died. Because you hid it from her. You caused her death. And you just repeated the same mistake with me.”

“She knew about the Division. I met her when she was an army nurse. We married but we started getting into fights because I was never home and she wanted to build a family. But I couldn’t give her that because of my rank. I was always on duty and I could never tell her anything about it either. So I promised her a better life where she wouldn’t have to worry about her husband being sent away on missions. I promised her a stable home. Silmido happened and I used the opportunity.”

“You could have used your leverage to just get out of the army! Why create the Division?”

“We were three soldiers aspiring a life of riches and gold, our vision of life was shallow. And your mother… your mother didn’t agree with the Division but we needed the financial support it provided -- working for the military never paid well. I thought I’d make her come around eventually. Instead she spent years looking for the hard drive and what was inside in my back and I knew nothing about it. When she found what was on it, she took you and wanted to go to Seoul to meet with a reporter. Word got to the President’s minions and--” He choked on his words. “Everything changed when I met your mother. She made me want to be a better man. She saw the good in every little thing and I--” he paused, then said, “The reason I never told you is because I was afraid of what you would think of me.”

She brought a shaky hand to her throat, to Woobin’s necklace that no longer was there and let her hand fall back. “Do you know,” Her voice cracked. “I spent the past eight years blaming myself for what _you_ caused. Years of torturing myself and you couldn’t even deign be a father to me, you couldn’t deign speak with me about any of it. You just gave me indifference. And you knew, didn’t you?” her eyes watered and her vision blurred. “You knew how I felt. You never did anything to ease my pain.”

“I was afraid of losing you too,” he choked out.

“Well, good job!” She yelled. “Because you lost me. You’ve never been anything remotely close to a father to me and you’re a _coward_.” She spat the last word like venom. Her lips trembled, and she looked away but there was no stopping the tears that fell out her treacherous eyes. Her voice was barely more than a whisper when she said, “How could she love you?”

He flinched. She might as well have punched him in the stomach.

 _Good_.

Her mother was kind, generous and loving.

How did she fall in love and have a child with a monster?

 


	19. Wreak Havoc

Bora couldn’t bear looking at her father’s tortured face any longer.

She didn’t want to feel any particular type of way. In fact, she just didn’t want to feel, period. She was utterly lost, her brain overdosing on all the information.

She didn’t know what she expected her father to tell her. Not that. Because that was national security matter and way bigger than her. She couldn’t handle that.

She vaguely remembered telling her father she wanted to leave in a voice that was not quite her own. Above anything else, she wanted to get as far away as possible from that God forsaken place and its smothering darkness.

She started feeling sick and pulled a swirling chair out from the oval table with a shaky hand. She sat facing the large glass panes of the Operations Room. Now she could view what was down there and she didn’t know why she felt startled. That explained the whispers she’d heard when she’d stepped out of the elevator.

Because the elevator gave right away on a sort of training room. A wide array of equipment and gear was made available and in the middle were mats on the floor for physical combat training. From her spot, she surveyed the young people below.

 _God,_ she thought, some of them were barely teenagers! Her attention was drawn to a girl particularly deft in staff handling. She was taking two opponents at a time on the mats and even Bora had to admit she was pretty damn good. She swirled the stick and twirled like a tornado carried by the wind. It was both beautiful and ugly to witness as she brought her opponents to their knees.

They went in for another round and Bora tried to identify the girl’s tells. Everyone, her father had taught her, had a weakness. Be it a weaker leg, a hand they favored, or lack of speed. Find the tells. Use the tells.

Bora bent forward on the edge of her chair and squinted her eyes. The blonde-haired beauty -- she truly was beautiful,-- raised her hands, blocked her opponent’s staff and… _there_. Bora tilted her head, like a cat contemplating a mouse. The girl had her left side completely exposed. Bora kept watching as the trio went in for another round but still that unprotected left side, so open and inviting. Celeste the dagger would find a sweet home there.

“Miss Lee,” Her contemplation was interrupted by a new voice behind her, “pleased to finally meet you.”

Bora slowly turned around and got out of the chair. She assessed the newcomers. Mark, his brown hair ever so put together, cast her a dirty look that she shot right back. Jackson was there too and she was thankful her tears had dried. Jackson’s father looked a lot like him. They had the same nose and keen eyes. Lastly, she tried not to cringe at the man who’d spoken. One side of his face was completely burned, the sight of the scarred flesh turning her stomach over.

“I can’t say the same of you,” she crossed her arms over her chest.

He laughed. The sound, coarse and misplaced in the instant, rang through the room. “You’ve grown into a woman but sure kept your sharp tongue. Your father did a good job of keeping you hidden away the past eight years, but when you were little, you often came here to play. Though, at the time, my face was still intact.”

She had no memory. Not of that time, not of him, even after picturing him with a smooth, untouched skin. She stayed silent.

“That’s enough entertainment for the day,” Mr. Wang readjusted his grip on his cane. “You should leave. Hyun Suk, this is not the reunion I’d hoped for, I hope we can meet again under better circumstances. You know our door will always be open to you. After all, you own this place as much as we do.”

Mark sneered his contempt. That he believed Lee Hyun Suk had no place in Division after letting it down, was a secret to no one.

Someone came barging in through the doors and quickly descended the steps waving an electronic tablet in front of him. “--established contact with the Blue House,” the boy said, short of breath. “we need  to call them to let them know what’s going on.”

He stopped next to Jackson, addressing him with a worried frown. “They’ve flaunted your face on every TV broadcast. They must have panicked for the hard drives.”

Jackson shook his head, unconvinced. “I’ve been thinking about that. They found us in the diner _without_ launching a national manhunt. Why wait and not launch a search right away? No, something’s not right. They wouldn’t have taken the matter to the public’s eye like that. Something must have happened in the diner. I just don't know what yet.”

Bambam turned to Bora, finally noticing her presence. “You have your face everywhere on national TV too. The only way for it to be taken down is for them to know that you’re here at the Division and that the hard drive is safe and away from any civilian.”

“Do that and then we can leave,” her father intervened. “You won’t ever have to come to this place again after that.”

She pressed her lips in a thin line.

They didn’t understand. None of them understood. But she nodded anyway.

Mark gestured to Bambam. The latter plopped down on a chair and grabbed an energy drink. He swiped his finger on the tablet and the biggest screen of the room set high on the side wall lit up and crackled. A heavy silence ensued and...

The President of South Korea’s face appeared. It was an effort for Bora not to gape. It wasn’t easy as she took in who accompanied the President on each side. The President sat in a plush chair, the tip of the national flag behind him and, flanking each side of the chair, cloaked in the shadows, were Jaebum and Seonmin. Bora took a step forward, her nails digging in her palms in an effort to remain composed.

Mark’s father spoke with the President but she could only hear her blood thrumming in her veins crying bloody murder. She stared Seonmin down, picturing herself gouging his eyes out and she could’ve sworn he was staring right back at her.

“The matter has been handled. There’ll be more _damage control_ in the future,” Mr. Wang said with a quick side glance in passing at Jackson. “In the meantime, as you can see, the hard drives are safe with us. Lee Hyun Suk will keep his daughter in check. Everything is back to normal on our side.”

There was a silence where the president assessed them with his dark eyes beneath bushy eyebrows. Then, he said, “What tells me _she_ won’t speak?”

“She’s--”

“I,” Bora cut Jackson, “am very much capable of speaking for myself. And I won’t speak because I can put two and two together. I understand what all of this entails and that it would be madness to reveal the content of the hard drives to the nation. I won’t make the same mistakes as my mother.”

Oh, she most certainly wouldn’t.

“Fine,” The President shrugged seeing nothing worthy to be treated as a threat. He added casually, “We’ve heard of another civilian being involved.”

 _Woobin_. The tension in the room went up a notch.

Bora sucked in a breath just as Jackson cut in, “I’m afraid you’re misinformed.”

The President’s severe eyes pierced through the screen and she felt squeamish. She was stupid for letting her emotions scrap at her façade. She copied Jackson’s stance, projecting as much confidence as she could. Finally, the man dipped his chin before the screen turned black.

Bora loosed the breath she’d been holding in.

“You work with him,” she said to no one in particular her throat bobbing, nodding furiously and pacing back and forth. They worked with Seonmin. They worked with her mother’s executioner. She stopped her pacing and turned to her father. “Why are you not going after him?”

“The faster you’re back in Seoul, the better,” Mr. Wang said to her father not giving him a chance to speak after stealing a quick glance Bora’s way.

“He killed Mom, tried to kill me, and you let him walk free, unpunished? This man admitted to killing my mother, _your wife_ . He rammed his truck into our car. He tortured _me_.” She screamed and slammed her hands on the glass table in a rattle.

“We don’t expect you,” Mark’s father intervened slowly, “to understand how politics or business work overnight, Miss Lee. We all loved your mother very deeply and sincerely regret her death. We mourned her here just as you did in Seoul, but sometimes you have to put aside your personal vendettas. For the greater good.”

“The greater--” She bit her tongue to refrain a curse, reminding herself she owed respect to her elders. She ran her tongue over her teeth and curled her fingers into fists resting over the table and slowly said, “If you won’t do anything to stop him, I will.”

“Really?” Mark piped in. “I’m dying to hear your take on how to take down the President’s right hand man.”

She loosed a breath and straightened her back. She slowly extended a hand behind her gesturing to the people training in the pit below. “You have this whole black-ops organization with trained assassins.”

“We’re not assass--” Bambam started.

“Except,” Mark interrupted, “I’m the Leader of Division and I won’t put any of my _assassins_ on this fool’s errand.”

A small smile curled her lips. “According to whom? Did you compete to become Leader?”

Of course, she knew he had not. She’d scraped enough from conversations here and there to piece it all together. Mark was the designated Leader of the Division, but he was untried. The only person who could have, Jackson, didn’t want to, and the other one, herself, had been walled away in Seoul.

But not anymore.

“What makes you a good fit?” She poked again. “Were you challenged?”

Mark bared his teeth at her and in two strides he was charging towards her. “ _Watch your mouth_.”

She advanced to meet him but her view was obstructed by a hard body as Jackson placed himself between the two. His face was calm but she felt his uneasiness as he peered down at her, his eyes holding a thousand questions.

Her smile grew. She turned to face them all as she was struck with a moment of pure clarity.

“I want to compete.”

Time stopped.

“Oh, I _love_ where this is going.”  Bambam chewed on the straw of his drink.

“I’m sorry, you what?”

“You heard me. I want to compete. In other words,” she drawled, “I challenge you, Mark Tuan, as Leader of the Division.”

“No.”

“I’m not asking you.”

“ _No.”_

“You founded the Division,” she addressed herself to their three fathers who stood on the side, thunderstruck. “You wanted your children to ensure continuity, I heard everything. Mark and Jackson should have battled it out. Wang passed the opportunity.” She paused, pointed a finger to her chest and shook her head, “I didn’t.”

Mark blanched. “You missed the boat.”

“Are these rules written in stone? I’m a daughter of one of the founders of this organization,” Bora asserted, both hands lying flat against the table. “I’m just as entitled to take it over as you are.”

Mark laughed, dismissing her. “We’re not doing this. End of discussion.”

“Is it because I’m a girl?”

“Because you’re young,” a husky voice cut in, quiet like death over their screams, “inexperienced, and don’t have a full grasp of the situation.”

Bora glared at Jackson and pursed her lips, the feeling of betrayal heating her cheeks. She ignored him and jabbed at Mark once again. “You’re not legitimate, you got handed over the reins for free. It’s not fair.”

“Bora,” her father reached for her, “you need to --”

“ _This_ ,” she jerked away from him, pointing an accusing finger his way, “is all your fault. _You_ put me in this situation. You don’t get to tell me what I need to do! And _you_ ,” she pointed to Mark, “will compete against me.”

“ _Never_.” Mark exclaimed, his jaw twitching.

“Are you afraid to get your ass kicked?”

She was halfway through her sentence when Mark grabbed her shirt with two fists. She merely smirked at him, channeling as much insolence as humanly possible in her gaze. Her eyes held a challenge he itched to make her swallow whole.

“ _Enough_.” Mr. Tuan’s voice seethed with barely contained anger behind them.

Mark looked over her shoulders at his father’s face turning red. It was enough to dissuade him. He pushed Bora back and shot her a dirty glare, nostrils flaring.

She regained her balance keeping her head high and smirked at him. She mouthed so he could read on her lips, “ _Good boy._ ”

His eyes widened. He started for her again but this time Jackson was between them before he could wrap his hands around her throat. She crossed her arms over her chest as Jackson struggled, sandwiched between them. His eyes found hers, edging her to stop this madness.

It was mad, she knew. But it felt _right_. And when she had seen Seonmin, it had been the last drop for her. The rest of her actions felt natural, like it what she was supposed to be, what these past days had been building up toward.

“I SAID ENOUGH!” Mr. Tuan’s voice boomed making the room jump in surprise. “ _You stand down,_ ” he sent his son a glare. “or I will have you both crucified.”

Mark pushed himself off Jackson.

There was a silence where only their pants could be heard. Then, before Bora could plead her case once more, Mr. Tuan spoke and to the room’s general surprise, he said in a velvety voice, “The girl makes sense. She’s entitled to this position as much as you are.”

“Father!” Mark croaked out.

Jackson froze, his eyes going to the man.

“ _What are you doing?”_ Bora’s father hissed.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Mr. Wang said.

“Why not? Mark should have nothing to fear of her. Like Jackson wisely mentioned, she’s young and inexperienced. You _will_ compete against each other.” Mr. Tuan said, his tone so final that Bora started wondering if she’d made the right decision after all.

“What do you get out of this?” Jackson breathed out, looking aghast.

“It’s only fair,” He only replied with a smirk. “Division will hold a series of Trials like it was initially planned at its creation. Whoever wins, will become Division’s rightful Leader.” he smirked. “Sounds fair enough to you?” He shot his last question to Bora.

She nodded sharply. Truth was, she hadn’t expected to get what she wanted that easily.

“Let everyone cool down for a bit, shall we?” Mr. Tuan said. “Get some rest, maybe show Ms. Bora around. What do you think?” He asked Mark.

“Fine,” Mark struck the table, his eyes sending lightning bolts her way. “Game on.”

 

* * *

 

“We haven’t officially met. I’m Bambam, nice to meet you.”

Dawn was approaching. They had spent the night negotiating Bora’s candidacy for Leader. Now, the young boy with chestnut hair accompanied Bora after being dismissed by Mr. Tuan. The old man had ordered Bambam to lead the girl to a bedroom of her own to _get some rest_ and _maybe a shower_ before the upending trial the following day.

“Lee Bora,” She awkwardly shook his extended hand.

“I know,” he smirked.

She examined him and wondered how old he was. He had a baby face and there was a sort of constant glimmer in his pupils that screamed malice. He motioned for her to follow him and she did after a quick glance over her shoulders.

Mr. Tuan was making his way out of the Operations Room and he winked in her direction before rounding the opposite corner. Mark was close on his tracks but didn’t spare her a glance.

Bora cleared her throat as she caught up to Bambam. “Um, I wanted to thank you for…”

“Don’t mention it,” Bambam waved her off. “I happen to save a lot of asses around here.”

Bora shrugged. Her mind flashed back to the blonde girl and her sticks.

“Who were the people down there?” She asked him.

“Where?”

“The training room.”

“Recruits and agents.” He shrugged. “People we help, and they help us in return.”

“What’s the difference between recruits and agents?”

“Agents work on real missions in the outside world. Recruits are forbidden to leave the Cliff until they’re deemed fit to become agents.”

“That’s sequestration.” Bora made a face.

“Believe me, they’re better off at the Cliff than anywhere else.  Our headquarters are designed to protect whoever inhabit them. There’s no safer haven in the country. They all come from dark places and backgrounds. Even if we let them leave, they have nowhere safe to go.” He motioned around to the carpeting that muffled their steps, the wooden walls and expensive crystal chandeliers. “This is Cloud Nine. It’s the ninth floor of the Cliff and requires the highest level of clearance. Mark, Jackson, me, and a select few agents we trust with our lives are granted access to the Operations Room and the rest of this floor. The recruits’ quarters on the other hand are located on the deepest levels.”

“Harder to escape.” Bora said cynically.

“And closer to the cells.” He confirmed unabashedly. “The whole Cliff is a private property. All the land surrounding us was bought by our founding fathers down to the seashore in a twenty kilometers radius. Completely privatized.”

“Can I go out to see it?” She tried, hopeful.

“I’m afraid that’s not my call to make. As you’ve probably noticed, our headquarters are underground. More precisely, right beneath the elders’ villa where Jackson and Mark’s families live. The comings and goings are under tight surveillance.”

“Families?”

“Well,” Bambam started, uncertain of the extents to which he was allowed to go.

She gave him a reassuring nod and willed as much benevolence in her eyes as she could. _Tell me._

“There’s Jackson’s sister and both his parents. Mark only has his father, like you. He has a big sister but she left Division as soon as she could. She’s a lawyer somewhere in the city, fighting crime, you know, just the opposite of her family. She despises her father.”

“Understandable.”

Bambam cackled. “Watch your mouth, honey. Even the walls have ears down here.”

She didn’t doubt of it. She had already counted fourteen cameras from the Operations Room to the set of french doors they now stood before. Bambam pushed open the doorknob.

Bora let out a gasp. This was not a bedroom. It was a suite. A luxurious one. The bed could easily fit five adults. It was mounted on a small platform and was drowned with pillows of all sizes and shapes. On each side of the bed stood mahogany nightstands. There was a deep red plush velvety sofa with a matching set of pillows.

The net worth of all the furniture was probably worth more than her miserable existence.

A forest was reflected on a panel facing the entrance covering the entirety of one wall. Trees of all sizes and shapes towered high above, their gnarled branches almost touching the grey sky. She heard birds chirping away from somewhere.

For a moment, she thought it was some kind of bay window but the view shifted and she was now among skyscrapers. She had a beautiful view of Busan’s night lights like she was standing on the highest building of the city. With it, came the muffled sounds of traffic.

Then, the image changed again to a sandy island. The ocean stretched unendingly before her, a single palm tree swaying in a light breeze. She heard the water wash over the sand in an incessant song.

“Ah, better.”

Bora looked back to Bambam who was playing with a curvy touch screen remote control. That explained that.

“Where are we? Dubaï?” Bora deadpanned at the shameful sprawl of luxury.

“It helps keep you sane,” the boy just shrugged. “Try living underground for an extended period of time.” He put the remote back on the nightstand. “So yeah, that’s your new bedroom.”

“You call that a bedroom? I’m pretty sure my house could fit in there.”

“I mean,” Bambam raised one eyebrow. “it’s average but yeah I guess.”

She shot him a bewildered look. “ _Average?”_

“Hey, it’s not my fault you have low standards.”

“Ever heard of modesty?”

“Ever heard of a shower?” He shot her a disgusted look.

Bora displayed a dry smile and quickly shooed him out of her room to be left alone.

* * *

 

Mark expected the slap. It didn’t lessen the sting of it any less.

One look at his father and he’d followed his lead out of the Operations Room leaving behind Jackson arguing with his and Bora’s fathers about this new turn of events. When, finally, they rounded a corner, his father whirled around and lashed out at him. The sound reverberated around for their ears only.

Mr. Tuan always made sure there was no one to witness this. For the sake of keeping a united front, Mark supposed. Mr. Tuan would never outright go against anything Mark said when there were people around, especially Mr. Lee and Mr. Wang. One-on-one with his son, however, was another story entirely.

Mark kept his eyes trained on the ground, not letting a single tear be shed. His father grabbed a fistful of his hair and stuck their foreheads together. “What’s gotten into you?” He growled quietly, baring his teeth. “You didn’t fight for your position at least show yourself worthy of it. The girl comes sweeping in through the door and you lose all countenance. What are you so afraid of? Have you no shame? No pride? She’s just a girl, for heaven’s sake!”

He released his grip, and Mark took a step back. “My patience is wearing thin, son.” He stabbed a finger in Mark’s chest. “Act like the goddamn leader you’re supposed to be, or at least pretend to be. If not you'll regret it. Understood?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Consider this your first warning. I already have one disappointment of a child. I don’t need a second one.” It was cruel, and unnecessary but after a pause, Mr. Tuan said, “Your mother must be turning in her grave, God rest her soul.”

As his father turned away, Mark reached up to his chest, to the gold cross chain he always kept around his neck. He clamped on it until the tip of the cross dug in his palm and drew blood. The pain kept him rooted in place until the sound of his father’s steps faded away.

* * *

 

Bora was thankful for the clock suspended on the wall, for no daylight could indicate her what time it was. She spent the early hours of the morning playing with the knobs and buttons of the shower. The bathroom, unsurprisingly, was as luxurious as the rest of the room. It was all marble and sleek tiles. There was a humongous jacuzzi in one corner and she couldn’t believe this was all for her.

She was drying her hair with a towel in a bathrobe admiring the view of the forest on the panel when Jackson Wang, in all his furious glory, strode inside her bedroom. She froze and raised an eyebrow, reigning in her cool.

His hand closed in around her arm and he dragged her to the door making her drop the towel.

“What do you think you’re doing!?” Bora yelled and thrashed, getting her arm out of his hold.

“I could ask you the same question,” he halted and pushed her against the wall next to the double doors. “What _the Hell_ do you think you’re doing?”

“Touch me again and you can kiss your balls goodbye,” she said with lethal calm, her back throbbing under the impact.

He shook his head. “You’re going to tell them you changed your mind. You’re going to go down there and tell everyone you changed your damned mind and are going back to Seoul. Or else--”

“Or _what_ ,” she interrupted him. “You’re going to kill me? I’m not backing down.”

“How many warnings do I have to give you before it gets through that thick skull of yours?”

“As many as you want -- this is my life. I’ll do whatever I see fit with it.”

“This isn’t just your life. You’re messing with the lives of hundreds of people. Division isn’t just a faceless entity. It’s real flesh and bone people sleeping, living, eating together. There is more on the balance than your petty vendetta.” He took a step back from Bora. “What are you trying to achieve? Do you think Mark’s father is letting you compete out of goodwill?” He pointed to the door. “He’s a twisted man, don’t believe for one second he will relinquish any power over to you. No matter what happens during these Trials, whether you win or lose; he’d sooner die than let someone other than his son control the Division.”

Bora grinded her teeth together. “I couldn't care less about your stupid organization. Division is just a means to an end. I don’t care how many people get hurt in the process. And I don’t care either if that makes me selfish just like nobody cared when _my_ feelings got hurt, when _I_ lost my mother!” she cried the last sentence out loud. She ran a hand over her face to keep her cool in check. “Everything I can get from Division, I will take, and even more,” she carried on and counted down on her fingers, “Every agent, gun, and bullet, under _my_ command and then, I will go after every person responsible for _my_ misery.”

Bora let her crude words sink in. She didn’t know when she had come to that conclusion but taken in the heat of the moment she realized with stark clarity that she meant her words. There was a roiling feeling deep in her chest, a roaring beast that had woken up inside her and given a new purpose to her actions.

The rules of the games had changed.

Jackson nodded, letting the full extent of her words unfold before his eyes. He crossed his arms over his chest and pursed his lips, almost in mockery. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

Because that was what her words entailed. Even if she wanted to throw it away to the back of her mind. She had been so caught up in the moment that she was detached to what her actions would ultimately amount to. Because taking over Division was just a baby’s step towards her end goal: revenge for her mother.

She briefly closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. When she reopened them, she willed herself not to stray from Jackson’s gaze. “I haven't, but I’ve lived the past eight years ridden with a killer’s guilt. What’s the difference?”

“The difference,” he repeated slowly. He smiled a little and ran both his hands through his hair, locking his fingers behind his head. “Have you ever witnessed the light fade out in your victim’s eyes?” He dropped his hands. “Felt the exact moment their soul left their body? Pulled the trigger, spilled blood and ended a life?”

“What happened to mercy being a weakness?” she countered trying to forget the graphic images being put in her head.

“Mercy?” he chuckled darkly.

A millisecond later, his gun was pulled out and he cocked it in one swift motion, the sound echoing in the bedroom. Bora backed harder against the wall, heart pounding but he didn’t aim for her.

“Here,” his rough hands wrapped around her soft ones. “take it!” he forced her to take the gun in her hand. “Now, shoot.” He aimed the barrel at his chest, his hands enveloping hers and making sure she held it firmly.

Her eyes widened and she tried to jerk her hands away but Jackson wouldn’t budge. She tried to sidestep him but he trapped her against the wall. The only thing separating their bodies was the silvery cold gun digging inside Jackson’s chest. Jaw set, Bora looked up at him in a mix of fury and dismay.

“Come on, shoot, _Princess_ ,” he insisted with a wry smile. “Pull the trigger. I hurt your feelings, now kill me.”

Heartbeat thundering at a mad rhythm, Bora started shaking. “It’s not--”

“If you don’t shoot me, I’ll shoot you. In 5, 4,...”

Her throat squeezed shut.

“3, 2, 1…”

She barely had time to reach for his arm that Jackson leveled the gun to her temple and pulled the trigger.  She closed her eyes and started. The click of the empty chamber teased her ear and he whispered, “Dead.”

Bora’s chest heaved up and down as she cracked her eyes open.

Jackson was looking at her, shaking his head. “You don’t have what it takes. You’re not cold-blooded.”

Fear still pumped her blood, the feeling leaving a metallic tang on her tongue. She bit on the inside of her cheek.

“Do you know...” she started, her cracked lips trembling. “what it feels like to lose a loved one? Have you, for one moment, tried to put yourself in my shoes?” A tear broke the dam of her blurry vision and streamed down her cheek and she swallowed hard, forcing the words out. “Imagine it were your mother in that car, or your sister. Would you have stood back while he walked free in all impunity?”

Jackson let the gun fall back to his side. His free hand reached up to a wild damp strand of hair and pulled it back behind her ear. A frown marred his forehead. He let his hand rest against her cheek and wiped a tear with his thumb. “Don’t,” he whispered low, his breath hot against her skin. “Don’t do it, Bora,” His voice was tinted with despair as he tilted her head up, locking eyes with her. “This isn’t your world. You won’t stand a chance. Mark and I have been bred our whole lives for this. He will destroy you.”

He hadn’t answered her question and they both knew it.

She nodded. “That’s what I thought.” She pushed him away and reached for the doorknob. She wiped her remaining tears away and pulled it open. “Get out of my room.”

He took a deep breath and threw his head back. Then, he snorted and walked to the exit.

“Think it over,” he murmured, stopping before her.

 _“Get out.”_ She refused to look at him.

He chuckled and stepped over the threshold.

She slammed the door behind him, rattling the door frame.

* * *

 

 

The President of South Korea got out of his chair. He rounded his oak desk and picked a cigar out of a finely carved cedar box. He grabbed a lighter and approached a window. He was interrupted in his observation of the Blue House’s garden by a soft knock on his door.

“ _Not now_.” He said loud enough to turn away whoever was behind the door.

He went back to his chair and lit up his cigar before pressing a button on his computer and sinking back in his chair.

“Report.” He took a whiff off his cigar, swirls of smoke filling the room.

“The girl wants to take over the Division.”

The President chuckled softly. “That’s… unexpected.”

“She’s unpredictable.”

“That’s why we work together,” He agitated his cigar towards the screen. “Let’s hope they don’t suspect you.”

“They have no reason to.”

“Keep it that way.”

The person on the screen nodded. The President brought the cigar back to his mouth. He let a few seconds pass before giving out his last orders.

“You know what to do. Keep the chaos going and our partnership will prosper. Report back when relevant.”

He put out his cigar and ended the call. He lifted a photograph from the thick stack of files beside him. He contemplated the face of the woman for a few minutes, deep in thought.

He grabbed his lighter and lit up the corner of the photograph.

The woman who had knocked on too many wrong doors and become a threat to his power.

“You’re a dead woman, Lee Bora.”

He watched her burn until only her ashes remained.


	20. Nairin

“ _ You’re not focused!” _

_ “Why do I have to do this anyway?” 18-year-old Bora’s hands closed on a fistful of grass after landing on the ground as she tried to catch her breath. _

_ Beads of sweat rolled down her face and ended up their path on the lush green grass of her backyard. She and her father had been up since sunrise. _

_ Lee Hyun Suk had been teaching his daughter self-defense every morning since the beginning of the summer holidays. She wished she were back in math class. At least she could’ve dozed off there. But not here, when her father reprimanded her every move and barked instructions at her. _

_ Ever since her mother’s death, her father and her had only drifted more and more apart as time had gone by. These self-defense lessons were the only thing bringing them together almost every morning before they both went their separate ways. Bora had liked it, at first. It made for a great work out and gave her a confidence-boost. But now… _

_ “We already talked about this, Bora,” Her father chided, placing his hands on his hips. He hadn’t broken a sweat. “This is for your safety.” _

_ Bora grunted as she pushed on her arms to sit up on the grass. “We both know that I can stand my own if I ever get assaulted. Don’t you think you’re pushing the training too far? That’s serious army stuff you’re making me do. I’m not going to fight into a war for heaven’s sake!” _

_ Her father crouched down on the grass in front of her and reached for her cheeks, “There will always be forces greater than you outside.  _ You must be ready. _ ” _

_ A strange glimmer danced in his eyes as he spoke as though he was hinting at something else, something greater than this moment, greater than the both of them.  _

_ But Bora dismissed it. _

_ She wished she hadn’t.  _

_ “Now, hit! And pay attention to your footwork this time.” _

 

* * *

 

Bora was dragged out of her slumber around noon by a light tapping on her door. It took her awhile to remember where she was. After her little  _ chat  _ with Jackson she’d slumped on the velvet couch. Mental and physical fatigue had overpowered her body and it was a matter of seconds before she’d drifted off. 

The knock came again. Bora eased out of the comfy sofa she was sleeping on and crossed the huge room as the knocking became more insistent. She whooshed the wooden door open while rubbing the sleep off her eyes. 

On the threshold stood a young girl, nineteen years-old at most. Her long, dark hair swarmed her small face like a black ocean, enhancing her sharp moonstone features and her eerily pale skin. Her big eyes stared up at Bora like she’d seen a ghost. 

“Yes?” Bora asked, a bit taken aback with bleary eyes.

The girl started and shook her head, “Are you Bora?”

Bora frowned, and nodded hesitantly.

“This is for you,” she shoved a silver tray in her chest, and entered her room. “I thought you’d need this,” she threw herself on the king-sized bed. “Umph, this bed is so comfortable!” She said, the mattress completely sucking her in.

Bora went over the content of the tray and almost drooled at the fried eggs, fruit, Japanese-style white bread and strawberry butter. The sight alone sufficed to get her out of sleepiness. A single fully bloomed rose decorated the tray, slid inside a thin vase. The stem had methodically been cut leaving the blood-red petals and the rose’s sepals to wilt in the near future.

Bora put the tray down on a chest of drawers and paused to take in the newcomer. She was lying on her stomach, her ankles crossed in the air. Her hands were clad in used, fingerless gloves as they framed her sharp chin.

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” Bora finally spoke, breaking the awkward silence. Awkward for her at least, because the girl seemed content with saying nothing and observing Bora like she was a caged animal in a zoo.

“My bad!” She stood up, a bubble of energy that started to get on Bora’s nerves so early in the morning. She stopped before Bora and bowed low, “I’m Nairin Wang, Jax’s sister.”

“Ja--” Bora frowned, before remembering her talk with Bambam the previous day. “Jackson’s sister.”

Nairin’s face split in a grin that instantly vanished, “Though sometimes I think there’s no way we can be related.”

“Tell me about it,” Bora muttered under her breath, assessing the girl.

“What?” 

“Nothing,” Bora cleared her throat and grabbed a butter knife, “thank you for the food.” She buttered a slice of bread. 

“You’ll need it. The news spread like wildfire,” she wiggled her fingers. “Every agent is flocking in from the country. Everybody wants to see you. Your father built the Division from scratch; he is a legend, just like mine and Mark’s, but you were the only one we never saw.” Nairin explained, picking at her nails.

“How many of them are there?” Bora’s eyes widened, thinking back to the few young people she had seen in the training room the night before. 

Nairin chuckled, “The people you might have seen so far are only a portion of Division’s workforce. Agents come and go, I don’t really know how many there are if you ask me.” 

Bora felt queasy. All these people. She’d volunteered to lead them all. What did she know about anything? 

Nairin picked up Bora’s discomfort. “Are you anxious about it?”

“No,” Bora lied, taking a bite of her bread ignoring the knot forming in her stomach.

Nairin smiled a smile that dug adorable dimples at the corners of her mouth. She could see right through Bora but wisely kept to herself. “That’s good, because your Initiation is today.”

“Initiation?” Bora repeated.

“Well, we have this kind of tradition at Division,” Nairin explained a cheshire cat smile shaping her lips. “Everytime a new recruit comes in, they duel. It’s a mean to assess their physical strength and get to know them a bit more. Their fighting style, their weakness…”

“A duel?” Bora articulated through a sticky mouth.

“Yeah!” Nairin cried, clapping her hands like it was the most exciting thing she’d heard in years. “And you don’t have the best part yet!” She leaned toward Bora with a conspiratory air, “Mark will be up against you.”

Bora thought Nairin looked way too happy given the circumstances. She was completely oblivious of what all this entailed for Bora. Did Nairin think she’d grown up in that messed up underground agency? And to say she was expected to get in a fight with Mark Tuan of all people. She was well aware that her overpowering Jackson in the alley near the bank a few days ago had been an illusion. He had always been on the defensive and merely countering her attacks. He’d held back and had never meant to take her down.

And if Mark was anywhere near Jackson’s level, there was no way in hell to win this fight.

 

* * *

 

“Woobin!”

“Oh my God, Bora!”

Bora was so happy she could very well have cried in the middle of Cloud Nine’s lobby. When Nairin had casually mentioned in passing that Woobin had been let out of his cell the previous night, a feeling of shame perked its ugly head in Bora’s brain. She had gone to sleep not even giving an afterthought to Woobin’s fate. 

Nairin affirmed he had been taken good care of but Bora insisted on seeing him in the instant. Woobin was brought in accompanied by a man dressed in all-black. Bora locked her friend in a bone-crushing embrace. She pulled back to examine Woobin. He was a disheveled mess and definitely hadn’t fared the trip from Seoul better than her. 

“Bora, your father...” was all he could let out before Nairin cut them off.

“Later,” Nairin nudged Bora on. “We don’t have time. You have your Initiation.”

Woobin shot her a quizzical look and followed the two girls as Nairin led them to the deeper levels of the Cliff. Bora took the opportunity to fill her best friend in on what had happened on the eve and what the Initiation was about. 

“You’re not doing this,” Woobin came to an abrupt stop, grabbing Bora’s arm.

“We didn’t ask for your opinion, nerd.” Nairin intervened, getting a hold of Bora’s other arm. 

“Bora this is too dangerous,” Woobin ignored Nairin.

“Stop telling her what to do,” Nairin pursed her lips.

Bora eased herself out of their holds. “I  _ have _ to do this and I need you to trust me,” she told Woobin. “Please don’t intervene.  _ Please _ ?” She insisted when he didn’t say anything.

She held his gaze until he broke, “You’re crazy.”

“Enough with you two, everyone’s ready and you’re not even dressed.” She turned around and jerked her head in Woobin’s direction with a look at the guard hovering behind him. “Take him to the Pit.”

Bora opened her mouth and tried to reach for him but he was already being scooped away.

“What’s the Pit?”

“The others call it the Training Hall but I prefer the Pit. Has a nice ring to it, especially when Initiation ceremonies take place. You'll see why. Don’t worry, I’m sure Jax will take good care of your boyfriend,” Nairin snickered.

Bora didn’t bother to correct her as she entered in a new room. Racks full of plain dark clothes lined the walls. Nairin gave a curt glance to Bora’s figure and fished an outfit out for the girl. It looked like the one Jackson had bought her the other day and she started noticing a pattern in the way people dressed at Division. Dark clothes that not only didn’t attract the attention but concealed the blood too. She’d realized that after Jackson had had to stitch her shoulder up and she’d burnt her blood-soaked clothes. 

Nairin threw the clothes Bora’s way and she caught it with both hands. Jackson’s sister was nothing like him.

She was the other side of the coin.

While Jackson was reserved and controlled, she was rebellious and impulsive. Everything about her reeked trouble and youthful mischief. She had navigated her way through the corridors like she'd been born there (it dawned on Bora that she probably had), and  _ enjoyed  _ it. 

“So, how long have you known about--” Bora didn't finish her sentence, not really knowing how to put it. 

Thankfully, Nairin seemed to get the gist of it. “I’ve always known. Jackson and I basically grew up here at Division. We were homeschooled and Jackson’s training took up a notch when your father left after your mother’s passing. He and Mark have been trained their whole lives to take over Division.”

Something twisted in Bora’s belly. “But not you?”

“Oh, no. Dad wouldn't allow it,” she said bitterly. “Jax is the oldest, and a  _ guy _ . How could I,” she put a hand on her chest, feigning confusion, “a measly, weak  _ girl _ , compete against two strong  _ men _ ?” She let out a snort. “Damned men and their egos. They think they're protecting me, as if I couldn't hold my own. Dad didn't put a third of the effort he put into training Jax into my training,” she mumbled.

So  _ that’s  _ what that was about.  

“That’s why --” Nairin cut herself falling deep in thoughts.

“What?” Bora froze while slipping on her t-shirt. 

“I wonder why they let you compete. It doesn’t make sense. But then again, nothing makes sense around here.”

 

* * *

 

Nairin walked Bora down a corridor. It was nothing like the ones in Cloud Nine. This corridor was cold, dark and reminded of death row. An immense set of metallic double doors welcomed them at the end of the corridor. Its hinges were rusty and chains locked the two doors together, secured with a lock the size of Bora’s fist. Nairin fiddled with it and the chains slipped to the floor like lifeless serpents in a clatter of metal. 

“Artists’ entrance.” Nairin sneered. 

That’s when Bora heard it. Or rather  _ felt _ it.The buzzing of a crowd. The tantalizing sound made its way to Bora’s stomach and resonated in her body. 

“How many people are in there?” Bora wondered aloud, trying to keep at bay the horror creeping in her voice.

“I told you people wanted to see you. Are you getting cold feet?” Nairin teased.

“I’m not.” Bora replied, defensive.

It was a lie. She straight up wanted to hurl her guts out on the floor, wrap herself up in a blanket and never move for another day.

Nairin paused, a hand on the doors’ handles. “Try to look more convincing when you get in there. You better make them believe you know what you’re doing. Or else, you won’t last long. There’s no room for the weak of heart here.”

With those last words, she pushed the doors open.

 

* * *

 

The Pit was a buzzing hive and its name was fitting Bora thought as she looked overhead. She paused on the threshold, her body freezing. Shouts and chants echoed on the cavernous walls of the Cliff. This was nothing like the training room she had monitored from the Operations Room the day before. It looked like a small-scaled soccer stadium.

They had completely rearranged the place to fit row after row of bleachers that snaked up to the first floor’s railing. From there up, people leaned over the railings at every floor, shouting, clapping and hyping up the Pit. 

Every cell in her screamed at her to run the other way but somehow she managed to put one foot before the other and walk the long path connecting her spot to the middle of the Pit where a ring had been set up.

All eyes, whether in the Pit or the overhead floors, instantly shifted their attention towards her and she felt every inch of her being scrutinized. 

She made herself walk the path keeping her attention fixed on the ring and she could  _ feel _ the hundreds of eyes scanning her every move.

When she reached the ring, she noticed Jackson standing on the side. He wore a cap that cast shadows over his eyes but Bora could still discern his sullen expression. Next to him was Woobin his face marred with a worried frown. He seemed to be speaking to Jackson animatedly but the latter purposefully ignored him.

Nairin accompanied her to the edge of the ring. “Show me your hands.”

Bora did as ordered and let the girl wrap strips of cloth around each of her hands. She snaked the fabric around the base of her thumb, palm and fingers. “It’s to prevent any injuries,” she explained but Bora wasn’t listening. 

Her eyes had strayed over Nairin’s shoulders where Jackson was watching her on the side of the ring. His lips were pressed in a thin line, their argument still fresh in both their minds. 

_ This isn’t your world. _

If this wasn’t her world, she would make it hers. 

“All set.” Nairin shot her an encouraging smile, snapping Bora out of her contemplation. “Don’t fuck this up.” she said, and it oddly sounded like a threat. Before Bora could ponder on it too much, Nairin had scurried away in the crowd. 

Bora opened and closed her fists several times to test the bondings. She took a short breath and ascended the steps to the ring where Mark already jumped up and down on his toes to warm up. Bambam was next to him, apparently the designated emcee of the day’s show. He raised a fist when she fell in place next to him, and the sounds died out instantly, the crowd ready to drink his every word in awe.

“Everybody, welcome,” he clasped his hands together, “As I’m sure you’ve all heard, things are happening around Division.” his bubbly voice echoed against the rock, “Roles are being questioned, authorities are being challenged.” That caused a round of whispers in the crowd. “Lee Bora, daughter of Lee Hyunsuk, one of the founding fathers of our Division, has finally found her way to us and she claims her birthright to fight to be your Leader.” The crowd got louder, some people booing somewhere above. “Division doesn’t tolerate mediocrity and anyone wishing to lead you, should prove themselves worthy of you.”

“ _ Damn right! _ ” someone shouted from the highest floors, causing the crowd to burst in applause, hitting the rails, stomping their feet to make as much noise as possible. The curving rock amplified the sounds and echoed them tenfold.

Bora dared a glance upwards and almost got dizzy. 

Heads popped at every floor, peering down the ring and she caught coppery and silvery flashes as coins and bills passed from hand to hand. Bora almost balked.

They were placing bets on them.

Bora focused back on her feet and swallowed hard. She willed herself not to show any emotion and raised her eyes to meet her father’s. He stood in front of the ring, before the first row of bleachers. He was pale and Mr. Wang and Mr. Tuan stood next to him. Bora locked eyes with the latter and he smiled at her like a fox. 

She knew she was doing the right thing but couldn’t help feeling strange as she recalled her conversation with Jackson. She was playing right into Mark’s father’s mind games. The man was unpredictable and there was no way to tell what his next move would be.

Her mother’s face appeared in front of her, and she clutched onto it, the image fueling her with renewed drive. This had been her choice. She couldn’t let anyone get in the midst of it. She wouldn’t be scared, she would be strong. She had to; for her mother.

Bora cut a glance Mark’s way. His face was serious and she could tell he was confident about the outcome of their battle. He didn’t plan on holding back either. 

He was utterly galvanized by the crowd.

And Bora grimly realized she was the entertainment Jackson had denied them.

 

* * *

 

“She’s nervous. I can feel it.”

Nairin joined her brother on the edge of the ring. Jackson had left his position next to the first row of bleachers after Woobin’s constant pestering and fussing over Bora. The guy talked too much and Jackson was in no mood to entertain an outsider, or anyone for that matter. 

Arms crossed, he surveyed Bora getting onto the platform with caution. If she was nervous she didn’t let anything show. “With reason.”

“But she seems determined,” Nairin added. “Do you think,” she stopped in wonder before carrying on, “she’s got any chance to win this?”

Jackson examined Bora’s profile as she peered up at the people cheering in the overhead floors. “She’s good, but not that good. Her training doesn’t compare to Mark’s.”

“Let her get a taste of what awaits her, then. Maybe her Initiation will scare her away.”

Jackson didn’t think it would. He opened his mouth to speak, but his sister’s tone registered with him. He pivoted and furrowed his brows at her. “Why do you sound disappointed by the idea?”

“Why do you think?” She snapped, facing him.

“This girl better not get any funny ideas into your brain, Rin.” Jackson said, a warning in his voice.

“Mark acts like a dictator and you’re doing nothing.”

Jackson clenched and unclenched his fists. “We already talked about this.” He sighed frustratedly. “Please be a sweetheart and stop bringing this up.”

“I’m not a recruit!” Nairin protested, elevating her voice to be heard over the rattle of the crowd. “He keeps me away from missions and you pretend like there’s nothing you can do because it fits your agenda.”

“You’re eighteen, you’re too young. Missions aren’t a playground.”

“I’m nineteen!” she cried. “And you think I don’t know that? You’re constantly patronizing me!”

“ _ Enough _ ,” Jackson snapped. “This isn’t the place nor the moment.”

Nairin bit the inside of her lip and felt  tears blurring her vision like every time she got angry. “I don’t care that she’s a civilian. Some things run deeper than blood, Jax. If getting her on Mark’s throne is what it takes for me to live my life the way I want to, then I’ll do exactly that.” She turned and set her eyes on the ring where Bora and Mark were getting ready to duel. “I’m done living the life others want me to live.”

 

+

+

+

A/N

_So this originally was a longer piece but I decided to cut it in two halves so that's easier to take in + the fighting scene is taking long to write and tweak and I really wanted to come out with something (and also because I wanted to name a chapter after Nairin because I love her & I hope you do too!)._

_Thoughts on Nairin & her motives?_

_The next chapter will be the actual fight.  Who do you think will win/who are you rooting for?_

__


	21. Initiation

**J** ackson scowled. If there was one family trait successfully passed down from his mother to his sister it was stubbornness. Jackson firmly believed the women of his family were among the most hard-headed ones he’d ever encountered. That’s why he let Nairin have the last word. A word she meant, he could tell. Nairin had shown times and again that whatever she put her mind to, she would go through with it.

Nothing about Nairin compelled people to protect her. She was strong, brazen confidence. It showed in her speech as well as in her posture. She didn’t care about ruffling people’s feathers and he didn’t know who she’d inherited her sharp tongue from. 

Despite that, Nairin was too reckless to be let anywhere near the action. Jackson had vowed to keep her away from the things he witnessed on the daily for as long as possible -- as impossible as the prospect sounded. He was thankful that Mark seemed to agree with him on that end. 

“Ten bucks says he destroys her in the first minute.”

Jackson’s ears perked up and he turned his head to the bleacher behind him where three recruits were focused on a piece of paper.

“Make it twenty and I say in the first thirty seconds.” Someone chimed in from behind.

The boy in the middle who held the paper, lowered a pen to the page and scribbled down the bet. 

Jackson recognized him as Jae, a recruit of one year who was soon to be sent on the field.

“Thirty there won’t be a third round!” The boy to Jae’s right said.

“Fifty and she passes out.” The girl on his left countered.

Jae pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and raised his head as if sensing Jackson’s stare cutting down their ranks. His pen froze mid-air and the recruits followed his line of sight questioningly. Hues of pink instantly colored the apple of the girl’s cheeks.

“What about you, Jackson?” Jae tried tentatively, trying to ease the atmosphere. “Wanna place a bet?”

Jackson’s icy stare was their only response.

 

* * *

 

Bora wanted to gag at Bambam’s grandiloquent speech and Division’s overall tendency for melodrama and theatricals. She almost breathed out in relief when he jumped off the ring after signalling the beginning of round one.

A new kind of energy thrummed through her blood and spread to her fingertips as she rolled her neck. She stretched her hands, checking her hand wrapping one last time.

Mark did the same before covering his face with his fists. Bora bent her knees in anticipation, copying his stance. Mark’s felt unnervingly more natural than hers. They circled one another, both of them ready to pounce like lions.

“ _ Come on! _ ” the crowd urged on, getting impatient and starting to boo. 

“Remember,” Mark said to her and Bora froze, her eyes snapping to his, “you wanted this.” And he struck. 

She dodged the first jab and the next one but Mark wouldn’t falter. He cornered her, making her step back until she had her back against the ropes enclosing the ring. He curled his fists ready to deliver a hook to her jaw.

Bora ducked and pushed hard, charging into him like a bull with a grunt. She heard him snarl a millisecond before he connected his elbow with her spine. Pain shot down her bones like a thunderstorm. Not hard enough to damage it but enough so that she knew it’d be bruised and sore the next day.

His move forced her to her knees with a yelp. Frantic, she jumped back to her feet, ignoring the ache. Mark fell in a crouch and swept her off her feet. She tripped and the back of her head was the first to hit the ground in a chatter of teeth. He went for a kick to her stomach but she rolled on her back, warding off the sole of his boot.

She tried to get back to her feet but Mark was faster. He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her up. Thousands of little needles stung her skull. Bora opened her mouth in a silent cry as he forced her up and gave her one sharp punch to the nose. And a second. 

Bora let out a cry of pain and covered her nose in a pathetic attempt to dodge the punches. She almost sighed in sweet relief when he dropped her hair. But then his battered and bloody hand encircled her neck before her body could sag to the floor like a rag doll. He pressed against the softest pressure point on her neck and her body went rigid.

His mouth went to her ear and he said one word. “ _ Dead.” _

End of round one.

Mark had put her down in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. Her notion of time wasn’t at the best of its ability. 

The crowd cheered loudly, the accompanying rattle of metal even louder.  _ More _ ; they wanted more.

Mark pushed her off him and she fell on all fours with a grunt trying to catch her breath while Mark faced the crowd. Blood dripped down on the mat from her nose and she applied pressure to try to stop the flow.

Sweat glistened on Mark’s chest as he surveyed the crowd. Bloodlust danced in his eyes. He started clapping his hands slowly then faster in a mad rhythm, enticing the crowd.

The Division imitated him, spreading the sound in the Pit in a ruckus that built anxiety up in Bora’s chest.

“Again! Again! Again!” came the collective shout of the crowd.

“I told you she would not last thirty seconds!”

Bora’s head snapped furiously to the voices. Two boys and a girl that looked no older than twenty were snickering among themselves in front of the bleachers. Jackson stood a few feet before them, right on the corner of the ring, and embarrassment sprung up in her gut as she made eye contact with him. 

If she’d heard them, he certainly had as well. For some reason, that new form of humiliation was harder to stand under Jackson’s scrutiny. No, not just  _ some _ reason. She knew why she felt that way. His late night visit had planted the first seeds of doubt in her. He’d told her she wouldn’t,  _ couldn’t _ , win against Mark. 

She’d slept on his words and dawn had come with the blooming of a deep desire in her chest: to prove him wrong. She could beat Mark.

Fights were never about physical strength. They were about strategy and speed and wits. Sure, she was rusted after focusing on her studies and abandoning her training sessions with her father. But she knew she still had it in her. It was somewhere inside her, a familiar mechanism waiting to be kicked back into motion like an old bicycle.

It was the fear that was creating a blockade on her mind. How different was it from a creative block, really? She needed to get rid of that fear and regain control.

The first step to end a creative block was to put the brush on the canvas. The first step to get past her mental blockade on the ring was to throw that first punch. No fight had ever been won being on the defensive.

Bora sprung back to her feet.

Ready for round two.

 

* * *

“I told you she would not last thirty seconds!”

“She still got some good kicks in for a civ’!” 

“Come on, round two is about to start, place your bets!”

“What do you say, Jackson? Jackson?”

Jackson wasn’t listening. His eyes locked with Bora’s. They were fueled with drive, and something else too, something that made him feel uneasy. She spat and slowly wiped the blood off her nose. A smirk drew on her lips before she jumped back to her feet and turned her back on them.

“Hey, Jackson!” Jae insisted again.

Slowly, Jackson turned to the recruits the image of Bora still imprinted in his brain. With the ghost of a smile hovering over his lips, he said, “A hundred says she wins this round.”

The recruits looked quizzically at each other. But finally one of them shrugged with a snicker and wrote down his bet on the paper.

* * *

 

Mark rolled his neck as he watched Bora . He narrowed his eyes as he felt not just her stance but her attitude shifting. 

She charged for Mark a cry of battle on her lips. Mark’s eyes shone with barely disguised surprise but he adjusted quickly. He countered her strikes efficiently but still hesitantly. The roles had reversed and she was the one on the offensive now. 

_ Pay attention to your footwork _ , her father had always told her. For it was her weakness, and Mark knew it, that’s why he’d aimed for her feet and tried to knock her out of balance all the time. She needed to fix her stance and keep her balance. 

Mark warded off her punches and they broke apart to catch their breath. Sweat glistened on Bora’s chest. The atmosphere in the room was like a bubble threatening to burst at any moment. Tension reached its peak as the bodies of the crowd raised the ambient temperature. 

Mark came for a hit and she slid to the side, his fist missing her face by inches. She used his momentum against him, grabbed his arm and bent it upwards. A horrible crack resonated for her ears and a collective gasp rose from the crowd. Her foot lodged itself behind his knee and Mark groaned as he was brought down to his knees. Bora placed her hands on his skull and smashed his face against her knee with a groan. 

An  _ oooh _ rose up from the crowd as blood dribbled down his nose. Bora staggered back, her heart beating in her ribcage like war drums. Mark brought a hand to his nose. He observed the red substance on his fingers, like he was surprised to see it there.

_ Don’t freeze, Bora. Finish him. _

With great difficulty Mark got up to his feet. His eyes held dark and bloody promises. That’s when Bora made her winning move. She lunged. Like muscle memory she replicated the technique she had taken three months to master with her father.

Before he could resume a proper stance or try to take a step back or aside, or do anything, Bora hooked a leg around his shoulders, then another and locked her feet behind his neck. She felt Mark try to dislodge her but she locked her muscles and contracted her limbs. She gritted her teeth together and pressed her thighs harder together around his neck. She let her weight fall, dragging the both of them down. With a smack loud enough to be heard to the ninth floor their bodies thumped to the ground. 

Legs still locked around his neck, Bora peered down at Mark with a triumphant smile. One move and she’d snap his neck.

“ _ Dead.” _

* * *

 

The crowd was ecstatic. The show apparently lived up to their expectations and beyond. Bora had settled the score and gotten even with Mark.

Something slid on the mat, catching the artificial lights and reflecting a silver glimmer. It stopped to Mark’s feet and Bora’s eyes widened. It was a combat knife. The blade was sleek on one side and jagged and pointed on the other, edging to be wielded and rip through flesh and tendons. Mark slowly picked up the knife and twirled it in one hand at an unnerving speed his eyes fixed on her.

Bora looked at who had put it there and found the girl she had seen sparring in the Pit from the Operations Room the previous night.

“ _ You bitch,” _ Bora bared her teeth in her direction and the girl responded with an obscene gesture and a smirk. 

_ Of course _ , she thought. Of course fairness was not to be expected. Division’s very existence relied upon the dodging of rules. Why did she expect this to be any different? 

She took a deep breath. She knew how to disarm a knife.

Mark prowled to her and went in for a swipe. She curved back, dodging the knife by an inch. The crowd held their breath and time seemed to suspend as the onlookers watched Mark and Bora’s perfectly executed, almost rehearsed ballet of swipes and dives.

It took several attempts before Mark managed to cut Bora’s cheek open. She cried out when the blade grazed her skin, staggering back and realizing with horror she was on the defensive again.

That was how she lost the first round. She needed to get rid of the knife and bring back a fair fight. Stealth and speed would be her strongest allies on that one.

_ Be fast. _

She parried more blows using her forearms as a shield. Then, with lightning-fast speed she strained her leg as straight as humanly possible, and sent his knife flying away with one perfect kick. It flew above their heads before clattering on the side of the ring.

Before Mark could register what was happening, she’d already thrown another kick straight to his stomach. He fell back on the ropes where people were yelling at him to  _ get up _ ! His eyes shifted to the side where the knife was still on the ground waiting for either one of them to take ahold of it.

They jumped at the same time but it was Mark who got his hand on the knife first. They struggled on the floor. Mark overpowered her, his body pressed down against hers, he punched her throat. She made a choking sound as the blade approached her neck. Her arms shot up, blocking the trajectory of the weapon but she didn't have enough strength to keep him at bay for long. Her arms trembled under the effort and her features contorted in pain. She had to get out of this position because her arms were ready to give way. She wouldn't resist for long. 

Her knee connected with Mark’s groin hard enough to cause his grip to loosen. He bared his teeth at her, pushing down the knife with renewed strength. She grunted and bucked again and again until she felt his hold on the knife falter. She let the tip of the blade graze her neck, focusing her strength on her legs. She tucked her legs under herself and unfolded them both feet landing straight in his belly with a throat-ripping scream. Mark was sent tumbling to the side and the knife flying away beyond the ring and into the crowd. 

Bora rolled to the side and coughed, trying to catch back her breath. She grabbed the ropes and scrambled to her feet. Sweat coated her face and stuck her hair against her skin. She locked her eyes where Mark was getting back up in the middle of the ring. This was it. The next seconds would make or break it all for either one of them. 

Bora advanced in his direction, her steps instantly freezing when she heard a voice rise above the cries of the crowd in a boom.  _ “Bora to your left!”  _

She whipped her head to her left, just in time to see the knife, its gleaming blade making its way full force back towards the ring from the crowd, aiming straight for her skull. Jackson’s warning gave her just enough time to bend backwards. She watched as the blade flew a bare inch past her nose before lodging itself in the rock on the other side of the Pit with a quiver.

It was all the distraction Mark needed. He slammed into her body, his arms wrapping around her waist. She fell back, her skull cracking against the mat. For a moment her vision was only a black veil disrupted by white stars. She blinked several times, the darkness fading away and being replaced by blurriness.

Mark’s silhouette straddled her, or was it two Marks? She didn’t know for sure. Her vision was playing tricks on her. It didn’t help that Mark was aiming his fist at her jaw. She bit her tongue under the impact and felt the metallic tang of blood spread to her mouth. 

He eased off her but it wasn’t the end of her personally designed hell. She gasped for air, a short respite before Mark grabbed her and raised her above the ground like she weighed nothing. He sent her flying across the mats. Her body tumbled and rolled to the edge of the ring. 

“ _Finish her!_ _Finish her! Finish her!”_ The crowd could sense the end of the fight too. They needed a grand finale.

She laid on her stomach, her nose bleeding pools of red liquid on the ring. Her brain tuned the cries of the crowd down to a dull background noise. Her vision was blurry but she still managed to make out a familiar body standing on the side of the ring.

She focused on his face, his bright blonde hair. Jackson’s lips were pressed in a thin line his fists curling and uncurling. 

_ Get up _ , he seemed to say.  _ Get up and fight.  _

She tried. She really did. She pushed on her arms, in a wobbly attempt to get up. She was on all fours when Mark, towering over her, gave a kick to her belly sending her back on the ground. She coughed and tried to get back to her feet but she couldn’t. Any ounce of energy had left her body. 

Mark picked her off the ground, his hand fisting her shirt. Her feet trailed behind her and if he loosened his hold she was sure to fall like a rag doll on the ground. Their gazes met but Mark’s conveyed nothing but icy, unfiltered rage. With a smirk, he pushed her back and she tripped and fell, clinging onto the ropes of the ring to stand upright. He knew he had her wrapped around his thumb. She wouldn’t fight anymore. And Bora hated herself for proving him right. Hated herself for failing to prove Jackson wrong. Her looming defeat was already too hard to bear. Her breathing became ragged. She was so grateful for the ropes she was holding onto. 

Mark’s fist met her jaw again, sending her head in the other direction. Then he aimed for her nose, then her eye. She felt thick, warm blood slide off her brow and cover her vision.

He hit again and she heard the mixed cheers and boos of the crowd as her strength abandoned her body and she was knocked out into oblivion. 

 

 

* * *

 

Jackson saw the moment Bora’s body went limp. Her limbs slackened and her eyes shut. But Mark didn’t stop his assault. Bora’s father noticed too. He yelled at Mark but Mr. Tuan still didn’t signal the end of the fight. His father shook his head helplessly in his direction.

Woobin who had been watching from behind, stepped past him towards the ring but Jackson’s hand shot out just in time to stop him. 

“He’s going to kill her!” Woobin protested, jerking his arm away from him with wide eyes.

“No, he’s not,” Jackson barked. “Don't interfere or you'll make it worse.”

If she wanted to compete against Mark she would have to be on her own. Anyone making an intervention on her behalf would not help her cause.

Woobin pressed his lips in a thin line but didn’t make another move. He just turned his back on Jackson, remembering Bora’s request to not intervene.

Jackson looked back at the ring, jaw set, repressing his own instincts. Mark, his brother in arms, was taken by a feral bloodlust. He was another person on that ring, fighting for his throne. He wasn’t punching Bora as much as what she represented.

A threat.

His punches became slower, weaker until he stopped altogether. He took a step back, shook his bloody hand. The crowd roared in pure euphoria, chants and shouts and laughs and applause. Applause for their leader. 

Jackson peered to his father again. This time the man nodded, his face strained. He hated himself for waiting for their approval but he didn’t think he’d be doing Bora any favor if he intervened on his own.

Jackson jumped over the ropes of the ring swiftly and fell to a crouch next to Bora’s prostrated body in a pool of her blood. He checked her pulse and sighed with relief. He gathered her in his arms and picked her up. He spotted Solar observing him and the woman in his arms. He’d need to have a long chat about that knife.

But for now, he needed to get Bora to the infirmary before she bled dry on the ring. 


	22. Bad Blood

Although Mark felt sick, he tried his best not to show it. He couldn’t allow himself to show it. Slipping out of the leash that usually kept his control in check had not been in his plans. But then, holding an Initiation for Bora and going up against her hadn’t been in his plans twenty-four hours ago either.

The crowd broke into an excited applause as Jackson gave Mark a long look before climbing on the ring and dragging Bora away.

Bambam, who stood on the sidelines, joined Mark on the ring and gave him a strong pat to the back. He said something that didn’t register with Mark whose gaze had strayed to the crowd.

The mass of people was like a blur; shades of beige and white smeared by a broad-brush stroke. He couldn’t concentrate on one face, except one. She stood on her own, apart from the first row, right in his line of sight.

Nairin’s eyes were wide at the bloodbath that had unfolded before everyone. Because that’s what it was: a bloodbath.

Mark looked down at his hands. They were covered in blood. The substance soaked his clothes and smeared the ring. A long trail of it had formed in Bora’s wake.

Blood, blood and more blood.

Mark’s eyes snapped back to Nairin. Her face had morphed from horror to wrath. But the latter wasn’t directed at him. No, she was looking for someone in the crowd. Her eyes swept over the bodies that were leaving the Pit and set on someone in particular. Mark followed her gaze.

It was Solar.

It was commonly agreed among the men (and women) of Division that Solar was a ravenous beauty. Long bleached hair, sensuous lips and all. Her looks could kill but not as much as her blades.

Solar was an eskrima champion, a martial art she’d mastered in the streets before becoming one of Division’s most brilliant recruit and agent to date.

Coincidentally, she happened to have a lot of bad blood with Nairin.

Nairin walked over to the girl, swiping past the ring without sparing if only a look in Mark’s direction. Solar narrowed her eyes at her approach.

She opened her mouth to talk but Nairin beat her to it with a fist square in her nose. Solar fell backwards under the unexpected violence of the impact and Mark’s eyes widened. Instantly, onlookers swarmed over the two girls to watch the commotion, hiding them from his view.

Mark cursed under his breath and kicked his legs into motion. He jumped over the ropes of the ring and pushed through the throng of people gathering around the girls.

The people who were filing out of the Pit stopped in their tracks, intrigued by the noise. The crowd around the two girls parted in his wake as they realized who was among them, his presence giving off a powerful aura.

Mark emerged on the edge of the circle that had formed, Bambam on his feet. On the ground, Nairin straddled Solar as her hands encircled her milky white throat. Alarm bells rang in Mark’s head when he saw Nairin’s hand reach back to her boot and slide a blade out of its sheath.

“Wanna play with knives?” She flattened the blade against Solar’s cheek who wisely kept still. “How about I shove this one up your––”

Nairin didn’t get the chance to name the few places she had in mind. Strong hands grabbed her from behind, pulling her off of Solar. She yelped and struggled against Mark’s hold. She whipped around, knife still in hand, ready to attack whoever had dared intervene.

“You’re coming with me.”

She didn’t try to stop him when he tucked her knife in his empty thigh holster after disarming her with unsurprising ease.

“Crazy bitch,” Solar hissed behind her, rubbing her neck and wiping her bloody nose as she clambered back to her feet. “No wonder they keep you caged in here.”

Nairin made a strangled noise and reached back towards Solar, breaking out of Mark’s hold. He grunted as he grabbed her by the waist and lifted her up. She let out a high-pitched scream and clawed at his arm, “Let me go, Mark!”

Instead of complying, he threw her above one shoulder. Her feather light weight usually wouldn’t request so much effort from him, but Bora really did manage to fuck up his arm that time.

He secured her thighs together, encircling them with one arm before turning to the crowd. “What are you all looking at? Get back to your quarters!”

Nairin let out a frustrated cry and he received a blow in the back from her kicking.

“NOW!” His voice boomed, a headache forming in the back of his skull.

He didn’t linger to see if they would follow his orders––he knew they would. He turned around and headed for the elevators lining the wall, opposing the flow of people. He set her back on her feet once he stepped inside the elevator.

She flipped her head back and launched herself towards the metallic doors, but Mark had already punched a button, shutting the doors to her face.

“Dammit, Mark!” She exclaimed, spinning around to face him her long hair whipping his face.

“Are you going to beat Solar up every time you’re in a disagreement with her?”

Nairin wasn’t on her first try.

She gritted her teeth, “ _I can try_.”

“What ever did she do to you? No, save it,” he cut her when she opened her mouth.  “I don’t want to know. But you’re going to lose this attitude, Nairin.”

A cold smile shaped her lips. “You’re right I shouldn’t have hit her. I should save up that energy for the Trials.”

Mark paused and studied her. “You really do want to out me.”

He let out a small laugh and focused his gaze on something else than her. They’d grown up like siblings and she was used to never sugarcoat her words, especially not with him.

“You’re completely missing the point,” Nairin carried on, not picking up on his emotions. “If you weren’t so caught up with getting your father’s approval, maybe you would see that.”

“Then what is your problem?” He threw his hands in the air, ignoring the sensitive spot she’d just hit. “What point are you trying to make? State it clearly.” He was tired of her cryptic messages and childish behavior.

“Didn’t you hear Solar?” she said, her voice getting on edge. “You keep me _caged_ inside Division.”

Tears brimmed her eyes, tugging on his protective instincts despite his best wishes. “Are the recruits giving you a hard time?”

She sighed and passed a hand through her hair, not denying nor confirming anything.

His eyes darkened, searching for her shifty ones. He insisted, “Is that it? Do you want me to talk to them?” His voice got deeper and Nairin noticed.

“ _No!_ ” she yelled, her eyes filling with alarm furiously snapping back to his. She blew out a frustrated breath. “You don’t understand. The only thing I could possibly want from you is a, to stop treating me like a child, and b, to get me involved in missions. I know you’re sending a team to retrieve an arms shipment in Japan next week. I want to go with them.”

Her eyes held firm determination. He almost felt bad when he told her, “You know your family is against it.”

“You always say that but I’m not more at risk than anyone. You can convince them of that. They trust you with their lives. I promise I’ll be good.” She joined her hands together in supplication. “Please, Mark. _”_ She knitted her brows together and mustered up a pout. She was the one searching to catch his eyes now. “ _Please.”_

“Puppy eyes work for ice cream, Nairin, not getting an arms shipment from Japan.”

She tried to keep her face emotionless even though fury made her blood boil inside her veins. She leaned back against the wall of the cabin, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Sometimes I wonder why you do this,” she said, not looking at him. “You want people to see you as the leader but you’re really not. Jackson is the real mastermind, isn’t he?”

Forgetting any pain he might’ve had, he squared up to her and pushed her against the wall. Nairin didn’t flinch. She definitely knew how to get to him.

A small smile drew up to the corner of her lips as she dragged her gaze from the door to Mark’s enraged face. Setting Mark off was always easy and way too enjoyable. It’d become her favorite pastime.

“Jackson said this, Jackson said that, Jackson is against it,” she chanted. “You think Bora will give a shit what my family wants if I can show myself useful to her?”

The elevator halted and emitted a soft sound, indicating they’d arrived to the ground floor of the villa atop Division. The doors opened to the hall of the house, daylight pouring inside the cabin.

Mark let out a small laugh. “I can see your loyalties run deep.”

Nairin’s only response was to extend her hand. “My knife.”

Slowly, he slid the knife out of his holster and put it hilt first onto her palm. He held firmly onto it when she tried to take it until she looked at him. She raised one eyebrow impatiently.

“You’re pulling double kitchen duty tomorrow.”

She snickered with an eye roll. “Yes, sir.”

He let go of the knife and she drew it to her before pushing herself off the wall and disappearing in the corridors of the house.

 

* * *

 

If that was what death felt like, she wanted out.

The head-pounding headache felt like someone trying to screw a nail on both sides of her head. Unbearable pain was spread throughout her body in all the sensible spots like thousands of tiny needles prickling her skin.

Death was supposed to be peaceful.

Bora managed to open her eyes and blinked at the bright lighting of the room. She squinted her eyes and raised a hand to her forehead.

“You look so much like her.”

The voice startled Bora mid-movement. She tried to whip her head to the side when a gentle hand rested on her shoulder. “No sudden move.”

Bora obeyed, the sharp sting of pain paralyzing her body. The person who’d spoken, a woman, came into view. She had nice brown hair and wrinkles creased the corners of her eyes as she smiled down at Bora.

“Like who?” Bora asked.

“Your mother.”

Bora’s heartbeat picked up. She swallowed hard and licked her dry lips, “You knew my mom?”

“Hm,” the woman nodded. “We were both nurses serving in the army. I’m Fan Wang.”

“You’re... Jackson’s mother?” Bora was still trying to ground herself.

Mrs. Wang nodded. “I had him three years before your mom had you. You two were always at each other’s neck.”

“I don’t remember,” she said truthfully.

“You would always steal his toys. You two really put us through hell.”

Bora chuckled, and pain surged in her ribs. She hissed, and her smile faded away.

“Don’t worry, the pain will pass.” Mrs. Wang said, meeting Bora’s eyes.

Bora couldn't shake feeling like there was a deeper meaning to her words.

She bit her lip, then straightforwardly asked, “How was she like?”

Something twisted in her. The only other person who knew her mother was her father and she'd never dared ask a question like that to him.

“I never got to really know her,” she mumbled like she owed an explanation.

She never got to have real-life conversations with her mother about the things that truly mattered.

Mrs. Wang mustered a sad smile as she sat on the bed. She passed a hand through Bora’s hair and didn’t seem upset by her question.

“Everything Ji Hye did, she did out of love. Her parents didn’t approve her relationship with your father,” she disclosed. “Her mother especially. Your mother’s family was very poor, but they invested in Ji’s education so she could become a doctor. But a marriage to a soldier and serving in the army who pays dust wasn’t the future she had envisioned for her only daughter. That was the thing with Ji, she _always_ followed her heart, even if it meant cutting ties with her own family. And I know it’s been hard on her at times, but I firmly believe having you made it worthwhile for her. She loved her parents, but she loved your father more; she loved him, but she loved you more. That’s why she left both times. I don’t believe for one second that there was one person she loved more fiercely than you. She wanted you away from this world, but fate has its own ways of doing things.”

Bora didn’t realize she’d been crying until the older woman reached to her cheeks to dry the trails of tears. The gesture was painfully tender. A tenderness she’d not been on the receiving end of since she’d lost her mother.

“I thought I killed her.” Bora’s voice broke at the end and she covered her face with her hands. She let out a sob, pain shooting down her spine as she did so. A long silence stretched out where the only sound came from the beeping machines. “I wanted to die.”

There. She said it. Something she’d never admitted out loud. She had entertained suicidal thoughts. Voicing it was so frightening yet so relieving. Bora had been deprived of a mother figure for so long, maybe that’s why she admitted it only now.

She needed this.

“I wanted to die,” she sniffled, “so bad.”

Mrs. Wang stroked her hair. “The Universe has a plan for each and every one of us. Her end was already written, Bora, and there’s nothing you could have done, you must know that.”

She shook her head under her hands. She refused to believe it. “What if there _was_ a way around fate?”

No matter what she’d come to learn about the circumstances of that September night, she couldn’t wrap her head around it and break free of her guilt-ridden shackles. What if she hadn’t cried that night, what if her mother hadn’t looked back, what if she had avoided the truck?

 _What ifs_ filled her brain.

Bora let her hands drop to her sides. “I couldn’t have pulled through were it not for Woobin.”

Reminiscing the period that followed the car crash never failed to hurt, but in the darkness she had endured there was a persisting hint of light. It was him.

“Yes, you could have. You’re Ji Hye’s daughter; you’re strong.” Mrs. Wang said it with such conviction that Bora wanted to believe her.

The older woman sighed. “I would never tell you what to do, God knows others have controlled your life for far too long, but I will say one thing.” She adjusted her position on the bed, taking Bora’s hands in hers. “Everything your mother did, every decision she made, it was with you in mind. But I know every action of her led up to the situation you’re in right now and I can’t pretend to know what you’ve been through and what you’re feeling. I know she would have wanted you safe, but I also trust you to make the best decisions for yourself, keeping in mind her sacrifice. Whatever you choose to do after today is entirely up to you.”

Bora nodded thankfully. With that gesture she hoped to communicate all the things she couldn’t put into words. A heart-to-heart conversation had been long overdue. A weight lifted itself off her shoulders

“You should rest some more,” Mrs. Wang smiled, cutting their conversation short. “It’s all you can do for now.”

Bora slipped back under the covers. Mrs. Wang was about to step through the door when Bora called back to her again.

“What about you?” She heard herself ask. “Why did you stay?”

Her mother couldn’t have been the only one to find the existence of Division morally wrong.

“You know, I wish I could give you some noble and selfless motive, but deep down I know that I never had the amount of bravery your mom demonstrated. Her determination was otherworldly. She had that… _spark_ in her that I never found in anyone else.”

She paused and gave Bora a long look. “You have it too.”

* * *

Bora opened her eyes some time later in the day when she felt the mattress dip at her feet as someone took a seat on her bed.

She cracked one eye open and groaned at the newcomer. “If you’ve come to tell me “I told you so,” you can leave.”

“I mean I _did_ tell you so, didn’t I?”

Bora glared at him in response. “Get on with the lecture and get it over with.”

“Do you want me to lecture you?”

“What did you come here for if not for that?”

“Would you find it hard to believe that I came to check in on you?”

“Yes,” she answered dryly.

“But I did,” he pulled out a roll of banknotes, “Gotta check in on my lucky horse.”

“Glad I could’ve been of some help,” she rolled her eyes.

So she hadn't been hallucinating. People had placed bets on them.

“I guess it would be ludicrous of me to hope you’d pull out of the Trials,” he said while tucking the money back in his jeans.

“I got my ass handed over to me, but I didn’t fall on my head. I mean I did, but that’s beside the point.”

“I thought that much,” he said softly.

His gaze strayed to her bedside table. A piece of paper lay atop it.

“What is that?”

She considered lying but thought better of it. “Your mother gave it to me. It's… It’s the address to my mom’s resting place.”

She had asked Mrs. Wang where she was and she had given her the address to a funerary hall in Busan.

Jackson’s eyes were unreadable when they snapped from her hand to her face.

“It's here,” she said. “It's in Busan.”

“Do you want to go visit her?” He asked carefully.

“I-I think that…” She rubbed her forehead. “I want to go, I really do, I just… don't know.”

“You don’t have to go n––”

“Would you go with me?”

Bora wanted to take her words back as soon as she blurted them out.

 _Stupid_.

An awkward silence stretched between them. Jackson opened his mouth to reply when they were cut off by yelling as a commotion took place outside the infirmary.

“Where is she?” Woobin’s voice reached them.

Bora widened her eyes and grimaced. She cast a warning glance Jackson’s way and slouched back in her bed.

Jackson gave her an intrigued look back, but she just turned her back to the door and drew the sheets up to her chin.

He took the hint and turned his head to the door just as Bora closed her eyes.

Woobin’s head popped through the door. He scanned the room and stopped on Bora’s form, her back to him in a seeming sleep.

His eyes continued to Jackson and glinted with fury.

A lab technician in a white lab coat caught up to him. “I-I’m sorry,” he apologized when he saw Jackson, terror audible in his voice, “he just barged in and––”

She felt Jackson’s weight lifting off her bed as he stood up.

“We have sleeping patients here,” he said calmly to the boy. “Where are the guards on duty? No one should enter the infirmary without approval.”

“What are _you_ doing here?” Woobin strode across the room to Bora’s bed.

Jackson met him halfway, stopping him dead in his tracks.

Bora tried to keep still and keep her breathing even. She knew what she was doing was borderline childish and irresponsible but she didn't feel like talking with Woobin now.

“I’m looking after your friend,” he squeezed Woobin’s arm and dragged him back to the door. “aren’t you grateful?”

“I can do it myself,” he seethed back, but couldn’t fight back, “you have no right to be here.”

“I own this place, I have every right.”

Just as he said that, two guards appeared in the entrance, short of breath. They looked disheveled  and in a panic.

Jackson jerked his head to them. They stood to attention and took over him, grabbing Woobin on each side.

“What are you doing to her?” Woobin asked as he was escorted out of the infirmary. Jackson followed him out to the hallway.

“Nothing…” he replied, then mouthed so only he could see, “ _Yet_.”

“Son of a––”

He smirked and left him to be taken away. Jackson didn't know how he managed to reach the patients’ area without getting caught. He'd look into it later––and fix whatever security issues the ER had.

“So,” Jackson began as he strutted back into the room where Bora was lying on her back and staring at the ceiling, “What happened to the whole _he’s my best friend_ speech?”

“I don’t talk like that,” she frowned at his poor, high pitched, imitation of her voice, “and I don’t need him fussing all over me right now. There are conversations I don’t want to have on a hospital bed. Come on, make yourself useful,” she ordered him, pointing a thumb to the water pitcher on her bedside table.

“Good, I don’t like him anyway,” he approached her and poured water in a goblet.

“You don’t even know him,” she sat straighter and pointed to the red and white sleeping pills that were next to the pitcher.

He helped her sit straight, and arranged her pillows. He then grabbed the pills and handed them to her with the water.  “I’ve seen enough of him.”

“You don’t know us and what we’ve been through together. He was there after my mother died, and he’s been there ever since. He pulled me out of a dark place.”

She felt sick at the realization. He'd always been there, since the beginning.

“Some people are curses in disguise,” he watched her down the pills with a glass of water. “They arrive in your life at the just right time. It doesn’t mean they’re good for you in the long run.”

She slammed the glass back in his chest, with more strength than necessary and lied back down in the bed.

“Whatever, Wang,” she turned her back to him and drew the sheets to her chin again, hoping he wouldn't bring up their earlier conversation. “Get lost now.”

She listened for any sign he might speak again over her thundering heartbeat. There wasn't any. Only his setting the glass back down on the table and the echo of his footsteps as he left the infirmary. The sleeping pills kicked into effect almost instantly.

* * *

A day later, Bora was all set and ready to leave the infirmary. Mrs. Wang checked her vitals and ran tests. She assured her that she was just going to leave with some bruises and soreness.

Bora felt a bit embarrassed about being admitted into Division’s ER but she knew better than to neglect her health for the sake of her pride when much more important tasks awaited her.

She came to learn that the first trial would be revealed the following day. She’d heard some medics talking while she pretended to be asleep.

Bambam had designed the Trials with Mr. Wang  as they both were considered neutral in the conflict opposing Bora and Mark, and Division made it a point of honor to be as transparent as possible. _How moral_ , Bora wanted to roll her eyes to the back of her skull.

No one knew what the first trial was about just yet but taking into account the two medics’ excited speculations, it sounded promising.

 _Go big or go home,_ seemed to be Bambam’s life motto.

She tried to push away the crippling anxiety building up in her chest.

She was let out of the infirmary around breakfast time. She stepped out of the medical center and froze when she saw who was waiting for her in the reception that also served as a waiting area.

Jackson was in deep conversation with his mother.   He wore a black long-sleeved shirt that fit his build amazingly. She decided then and there she was a sucker for broad shoulders.  Just… not on _him._

Whatever she was telling him dug an annoyed frown on his forehead. Bora realized there was no way around them to exit the infirmary. She focused her eyes on the ground and sped up her pace as she approached them.

“Talk with your sister,” she caught Mrs. Wang saying. “She looks up to you.”

“I will.”

Bora bit her lip as she passed by them. She let out the breath she'd been holding when she got through the sliding doors of the infirmary without getting caught. She quickened her pace and turned right.

“Are you avoiding me?”

Bora jumped out of her spot at the sound of Jackson’s deep voice. He leaned one shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms across his chest.

Bora cast a glance back, quickly trying to process how he was there when she had left him behind a few seconds earlier. She swallowed hard.

“Are you stalking me?”

“If I were, you wouldn’t know,” he pushed himself off the wall and approached her. “My, my, you're not pretty to look at,” he murmured and grabbed her chin to expose her bruised cheek to the white lights of the corridor. “You look even worse than yesterday.”

She rolled her eyes and jerked her chin away from his touch, pain shooting through her face in the process.

“Not so quickly,” he stopped her when she tried to get past him. “We didn't finish our last conversation.”

“What conversation?” She tried to buy herself time playing dumb even as her hands got sweaty.

He slid a paper out of his stupid shirt pocket and she recognized it immediately. It was the address to her mother.

“Hey!” She reached to take it from him, but he drew back. “I don't have time for this, Wang!” She shouted angrily and hit him on the chest.

“Let me take you,” he calmly said, her punch barely fazing him.

“Where?”

He showed the paper.

“No.” She didn't even consider it.

“You asked me to go with you.”

“I didn’t,” she lied through her teeth.

“You did.”

“I was high on meds.”

“You weren't.”

“I'll go by myself.”

“How?”

“I'll figure something out.”

“You have no idea where we are and the last time you came to Busan you lived in a fancy neighborhood in the city.”

She paused. All the points he made were valid ones. She got closer to him, her cheeks reddening in anger and a bit of shame too. She _had_ been the one to bring the idea up in the first place, after all.  “Why are you doing this?”

She didn't want him to feel pity for her.

“Does there need to be a reason?” he replied nonchalantly.

“ _Yes_ , there does. You don't offer someone you’ve met a week ago to take them to visit their dead mother.” She replied her voice getting louder as she spoke.

He let her harsh words sink in.

“A week,” he muttered more to himself with a slight frown. “Sometimes it feels like I’ve known you for years.” His black eyes focused back on her.  He tilted his head back like he wanted to take all of her in. “Want a good reason?”

She nodded and pinched her lips. But when he opened his mouth, it was nothing she expected.

“I know what grief feels like. Grief is a long process. All the things you’re trying to do, they’re distractions from what should be your true goal.”

She raised an eyebrow questioningly, edging him to carry on.

“Closure.”

He said the word softly, like it was the best-kept secret in the world. It drove her mad.

She scoffed out loud and looked up to the ceiling. “ _Right_.”

Jackson was unfazed by her dismissal of his words. He was utterly serious as he continued.

“Grief needs closure, especially when it's laden with guilt. _You_ need closure but won’t let yourself have it. I’m not saying visiting her will make all your problems disappear but it’s a step towards it.”

What was he? A psychologist?

“Again,” she said and threw her hands in the air, “why?”              

“Because it's the only way to get out of guilt’s claws,” he said keeping his voice levelled.

“Who said I wanted to get out of them?” she jabbed, a knot forming in her throat.

“What you need and what you want are two completely separate things, Princess.”

There he went again with that infuriating nickname.

“Need, want. Such a fine line.” she murmured, the knot in her throat tightening like a rope. “You seem to know a whole lot about it.”

“I do.”

Everything he said hit painfully close to home. He had an uncanny understanding of herself that only first hand experience could have provided.

Maybe they had more in common than met the eye.

In that moment, she saw Jackson Wang in a new light, through a whole new lens, and wondered for the first time, _what’s his story?_

It looked like behind that closed and sullen façade there was something. If she were honest with herself, it was always there, but she had never pondered on it too much. Because doing so required empathy and humanizing.

Those were the two things that created bonds between people.

Two things she didn't want to use in his company.

“You're infuriating,” she sighed. “Let’s go.”


	23. Allies

_ I want to puke,  _ Bora thought as she strutted down the corridor of the funerary hall with Jackson in tow. 

She honestly would have if only she had eaten something in the morning. Apparently, having breakfast required sitting and eating under the scrutiny of dozens of  other people. 

She didn't feel like walking through the dining hall knowing full well she would be the subject of all talks. The fiasco of the Initiation was still too fresh in everyone's mind. 

She gave a tight-lipped smile to the lanky man who guarded the entrance of the funerary hall. The place was surrounded by a colorful outdoor garden. Despite being a home to dead people, a comforting sense of peace lingered in the atmosphere. Everything was bright and sunshine poured inside through large floor-to-ceiling windows. 

She found her mother in a sun-bathed room with a glass ceiling. A niche contained her cremated remains, enclosed in a copper urn with delicate patterns etched all over. Next to the container, someone had framed Ji Hye’s smiling face, almost a picture perfect copy of Bora’s, only older. There were smaller frames, one being herself at her high school graduation. The moment captured seemed eons away from her current reality. 

“How did this end up here?” She wondered aloud with a raspy voice.  

“Your father’s been coming here every year on her death anniversary.” Jackson revealed. “He hasn't missed one.”

Bora gave him a surprised look. She wouldn't know. She herself would isolate herself every 22nd of September. She would go somewhere she couldn't see herself or her father or anyone else.

He never searched for her on that day carrying on with their lives the following day like nothing had happened. Now she knew what he did. He was a man of few words and Bora truly realized she had no idea what went on inside his head.

Her eyes swept over the things that had been left next to the urn. A necklace with a compass pendant was wrapped around the urn. Its four points indicated north, south, east, west.

She opened the niche and she heard Jackson shuffle behind her, but he didn't say or do anything. Not that she’d have cared. She picked up the necklace and let the pendant hang. She watched the compass swing from left to right and back again.

She turned it around and squinted her eyes to read the small inscription at the back.

_ Courage, dear heart.  _

It was a wonder she didn't burst into tears right there.

The last time she'd seen this necklace had been around her mother’s neck. 

She closed her fist around it and slipped it in her pocket. 

There were a lot of things she didn't get as a thirteen year-old but when she first woke up after the accident she felt in her bones what it meant. 

Survivor’s guilt, as they called it, had burdened her ever after. 

She usually avoided looking too much at photos of her mother but still gave her one last look. A look to remember.

Remember why she was there and why she was doing what she was doing. 

What she was going to do. 

As the sun reached its zenith, she made a promise.  

To her mother.

To herself.

If she'd been dragged in this world against her own wishes, kicking and crying, she would go down the rest of the journey knocking over every damn door on her path. 

A gun in one hand, a sword in another.

Head high.

And she would stop for no one. 

* * *

 

Bora's silence was never a sign of good omen. It had never been and it never would. 

That being said, Jackson still dared hope this time would be different and that nothing was brewing in her brain as they headed back to Division and Bora said nothing the whole way back.

She was deep in her thoughts when he drove the car back inside the underground garage. She barely noticed the dozens of cars of all types lining the walls.

They walked out of their vehicle and headed for the elevators. Their steps echoed against the concrete floor. She said nothing when he pushed the button calling for the cabin. He entered the elevator and thought it was her phobia keeping her at the threshold looking at him with a strange look.

He felt the apprehension that had been building up in his chest reach its culminating point when she opened her mouth. 

“Can we talk?”

He hesitated then let out a long breath, “Sure, let’s talk.”

“You… were right,” she started after he stepped out of the elevator and the doors closed behind him.

She looked like she had swallowed an entire lemon.

“I’m sorry, what was that,” Jackson bent forward pretending to haven't heard her confession. 

She licked her teeth and tried to remain calm. “I said you were right. I wasn’t ready for  _ this _ . I wasn’t taught how to fight properly.”

Jackson felt a smug satisfaction at her admission. “Are you telling me you’re considering going back to--”

“Teach me.”

A beat. 

“ _ What.” _

Of course she was not considering anything rationale, Jackson thought.

He was right.

Silence wasn't a good sign.  

“Train me,” she repeated with more confidence, and he rubbed his face with his two hands.

He was so done. 

She kept arguing. “You said it yourself; if I go about this alone, I don't stand a chance. Mark is more experienced than I am. Even if the upcoming Trials don't rely on brute strength, Mark knows the ins and outs of this business, he has connections and a competitive edge that I don't have. But you?” She tried to catch his gaze as he looked to the side, avoiding her eyes. “You’ve been in it for as long as him, you know the hangs of this. You can help me.”

He chuckled softly and rubbed his chin, keeping in check the anger and frustration that threatened to fizzle out of him.

“Princess,” he said with gritted teeth and she could almost see the smoke getting out of his ears, “everytime you open your mouth I tell myself you can't say something more idiotic than what you've already said before, yet here we are.” He turned his back on her and called the elevator again. “Not a chance.” He pushed impatiently on the button to call the elevator. “That's not what I had in mind when I took you to your mother,” he mumbled. 

His ideal scenario had been to get her to get past her grief and get over her stupid revenge wish over Seonmin.

His plan had backfired. 

“And what did you have in mind, exactly?  _ Closure? _ ” She spat the word like a curse. “You wanna know what I feel?  _ Anger _ . Anger towards what happened, anger towards the sins that have been left unpunished. Not closure. Not even close to it.”

He didn't reply and when the elevator didn't come he simply walked away. 

“That's it?” She asked, half-running after him. She refused to let it go. Jackson, she had decided, would be a key part in helping her win the Trials. An ally. Once she’d put that in her mind it was impossible for her to backtrack. “Is this how you deal with the problems in your life? By walking away?”

She grew more and more desperate each passing second. Desperate enough to provoke him. 

“That’s why you gave the hard drive to me in the alley, isn't it?” She caught up to him, and walked backwards in order to face him completely. “You wanted me to put an end to this. You didn’t know I was going to come back to save your ass. Don’t try to make me believe otherwise. You said you didn't care.”

“ _ Don't.”  _ He growled, but didn’t even look in her direction. “Don't talk about things you don't know. I was going to get rid of them and then find you, and get back what belongs to me.”

“You're lying,” she said. “For all intents and purposes, you considered letting the world know about the Ghost Unit. Even if for a moment, even if it’s contrary to your beliefs. You did.”

Still no response.

“You know what?” she stopped walking and stared hard at his retreating back. “You're a coward.”

He froze.

So suddenly that Bora did too.

Oh so slowly, he turned to her. Shadows concealed his eyes but she still could see how his face had blanched and nostrils flared.

He looked like he’d seen a ghost. 

He approached her, leaving only a few inches between them. Her heart beat fast but she was proud of her for not backing away.

“Say it again,” he dared her.

She didn't know what exactly her words elicited in him.

She'd said more horrible things in the past. 

His lethal calm was always more scary than his full-on angry mode. 

“You think you can intimidate me?” She curled her fists and spread her legs, looking up at him. She’d never hated being small sized more than in that instant. “You could've gone up against Mark and put an end to what  _ our  _ fathers started. But what did you do? You let someone like Mark take over Division. The same Division that thrives on blood, and killings, and blackmailing, and the exploitation of weak citizens. So yes, I think you're a damned coward, Jackson Wang, because the idle bystander is worse than the aggressor.”

“You,” he started, his voice a cold murmur, “must be the boldest and stupidest woman I’ve ever met, Princess. And I've met a lot of women.”

He bumped forcefully into her shoulder and walked back to their car. He slammed the door shut and revved the engine.

She scoffed out loud, shaking herself out of her daze. “That’s it! Run away again! I changed my mind anyways,” she yelled after him. “I don't want your stupid help!”

He sped away and she didn't turn until the sound of the engine was a faint, far off sound.

* * *

 

Bora found a way around the elevator. In the garage, a creaky metallic door led to spiral staircases that led to the deepest confines of the Cliff. 

She stopped on Cloud Nine first. Just when she entered, she fell on Nairin Wang, carrying a big cardboard box and heading for the elevators.

She was pretty absorbed by her thoughts, a frown on her forehead. Bora called to her, still shaken by her altercation with Jackson. 

“When is the first Trial?” She asked point blank.

Nairin who was wearing an apron scrunched her nose at her in distaste. “Hello to you too.”

Bora gave her a glare and Nairin let the box fall on the floor with a grunt. It looked heavy. 

“I don't know,” she shrugged after turning to Bora. “It could be tomorrow. It could be in a month. It takes a lot of planning, you know. Do you have a plane to catch or something?”

“ _ A month? _ ” Bora looked like she was going to faint. “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

“Well,” Nairin took the heavy-looking box again. “why don't you get a feel of Division?”

“What's that?” Bora asked, looking at the box.

“Vegetables. We just received a fresh shipment. It's nothing like getting an arms shipment but well,” she rolled her eyes, “I’ll take what I get.” At Bora’s confused look she quickly added. “I'm on kitchen duty.”

“Kitchen... duty?” Bora grew more and more perplex.

“Agents who completed their training are sent off on missions but recruits arrive every day,” she explained calmly like she was speaking to a child. “Somebody has to feed them, clean after them.”

“You do that?”

“No,  _ everybody _ does that. There are shifts and when recruits aren't in training, they keep the Cliff running.”

Now that she mentioned it, it seemed logical.

“Come to think of it, I could use a hand. Mark made me pull double kitchen duty.” Nairin continued.

_ Well, well. _

Mark seemed to be the authoritative leader. Bora started thinking strategically. If she were to become one day Leader of Division she’d better get familiar with the way it worked.

It would also be better to get to know the recruits,  gain their respect, and maybe having them on her side would benefit her in the long run. 

How loyal were they to Mark, really? She'd have to find out.

“Why did he do that?” Bora inquired nonchalantly. 

“I punched Solar in the nose,” she paused, and added, “the girl who gave the knife to Mark during your fight.”

“You did  _ what _ ?”

“Serves her right,” Nairin shrugged not looking sorry at all.

Bora gauged Nairin before saying, “You know I can't help feeling like you're trying to help me here.” She paused and looked at Nairin dead in the eyes. “Why would you do this?”

“What do you mean?” Nairin looked incredulous. 

“It doesn't sound right,” she squinted her eyes suspiciously. “As far as I'm concerned you’ve known Mark for longer than I. You're closer to him. I'm a stranger to you. Wouldn't it make more sense for you to be helping Mark?” 

“Okay I'm gonna have to stop you right there.” Nairin was dead serious when she told her, “I don't want Mark to win the Trials, period.”

“But why?”

“Because I don't agree with his... policies. I think some change is much needed around Division.”

The wheels in Bora’s brain started spinning in motion. She considered Nairin’s words carefully.

She could use an ally.

“Listen,” she finally decided. “You said you wanted some action, right?”

Nairin nodded, her eyes gleaming with anticipation. 

“How about helping me in the upcoming Trials? I don't know the tricks of the trade, I can't navigate my way through Division and the Cliff alone. But you do.”

“Okay,” Nairin replied without even a blink. It was all thought out. “On one condition.”

Bora crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows. 

“When you become Leader,” she started and Bora noticed she didn't us the conditional. “I want to become a field agent.”

_ That's it? _ Bora thought.

“What do you say?” Nairin asked. 

The shadow of a smile curled Bora's lip. “I say you got yourself a deal.” 

Nairin smiled brightly and in that instant she reminded Bora of someone. 

Jackson. 

Doubt began creeping in a corner of her mind when she imagined Jackson’s rage when he’d find out what she had embarked his sister on--and what she'd promised her. 

“Perfect,” Nairin snapped her out of her thoughts. “Then let's start right away.”

Bora pieced herself together and followed Nairin as she led her to the headquarters’ kitchens. They were located on Cloud 4, three floors above the Pit and the training quarters. 

They were composed of rows of stainless steel tables. There were already a few dozens of recruits clad in aprons. Some were busy cutting fruits and vegetables behind their work station, some were stirring giant cooking pots.

If they were all laughing and discussing animatedly before they entered, the sound lowered a few octaves when Bora made her entrance. 

She should have covered her bruises, she thought as she looked straight ahead and followed Nairin to a work station.

She gave silent injunctions to herself. 

_ Stand up straight.  _

_ Head high.  _

_ Bow for no one.  _

_ Stop for no one. _

She started getting to work as Nairin got her through the layout of the Cliff.

She started from the bottom to the top. 

Cloud 1, she was already familiar with. It was the Pit. It's where recruits dueled and where they trained with formed agents. There were training rooms, shooting ranges, climbing walls, conditioning rooms. In a nutshell, that was where all the action took place. 

Cloud 2: The classrooms. It wasn't enough to be the best in combat. Division trained its recruits to all aspects of life. Languages, mathematics, and all the subjects taught in high school and universities. Throughout their training, the recruits learnt all of them. 

The training process for the recruits varied in length depending on the skills of the person. Some recruits became field agents in six months, others in three years. 

Cloud 3: The IT center. That's where the recruits were trained into hacking and anything relating to computer science. 

The floor was shared with the medical center, home to the infirmary and the labs. Nairin remained pretty vague about what the labs contained but it seemed to be classified. 

Cloud 4: The kitchens and dining hall. 

Cloud 5: The girls’ dorms.

Cloud 6: The boys’ dorms.

Cloud 7: The armory and gear centers. That was where the equipment and props for missions were to be found. Weapons, clothing, makeup, random supplies. Briefing rooms were there too. To debrief agents before and after each mission. 

Cloud 8: The archives and mission records which almost nobody had access to. 

Cloud 9: The Operations’ Room and the top agents’ quarters. 

Ground Zero: Underneath Cloud 1, the cells and interrogation rooms. Again, access to that floor was restricted. 

Above Cloud Nine, Jackson’s garage, and the founding fathers’ villa.

It was a rough sketch of the place and she tried to embed it in her brain. As soon as she'd be done in the kitchens she'd run to her room where she'd seen paper and pens. She would draw out the map and would add more details as she got to know the place better, bit by bit. 

She was running through the information in her head when confident footsteps cut through the central alley, and stopped next to Nairin and Bora’s workstation.

“Ugh,” Nairin grunted at the newcomer. She didn't bother hiding her annoyance at all. “There goes my mood.”

“Looking good, Lee.” Solar called to her. “I hope you enjoyed my little gift the other night,” she said sweetly and fingered something around her belt. There, tucked in a strap was the knife used against her during her Initiation. 

“Two plus a knife against one,” Nairin snickered. “What a victory. Go ahead, pat yourself on the back.”

“You,” she turned her attention to Nairin with a disgusted look like she’d just noticed her presence.

Bora raised an eyebrow, bringing Solar’s attention back to her. “I don’t think I got your name?”

“Solar.”

“Well, Solar,” she said while faking a confused look. “What's wrong with your nose? It looks different.”

Nairin choked and she heard the table behind them muffle their laughter. 

Solar bared her teeth and was about to give her a biting reply when a loud voice raised near the front row, making every head turn in that direction. 

“Nobody moves!”

A woman in her mid-twenties stood at the entrance. She had messy hair and a crazed look highlighted by heavy bags underneath her eyes. She had a gleaming blade in one hand pressed against the throat of a man and a gun in the other, aiming at one recruit after another. 

The woman’s eyes jumped from one person to the other, a mix of lucid consideration and frantic desperation.

“The exit,” she said in a calm voice. “Show me the exit.”

She spoke to no one and every one at the same time.

“There's no way out,” said the man she was holding. Beads of sweat rolled on his temples and a pearl of blood shone on his neck right where the tip of the blade touched his skin. He didn’t seem too fazed. In fact, an amused smile was plastered on his lips.

“ _ Liar! _ ” she hissed.

Bora was the only one with a shell-shocked look. The recruits looked cautious, curious even. But not surprised, nor scared. That’s probably why, when she started analyzing the rows of people, she stopped on Bora.

They engaged in a stare-off and Bora didn’t know what to do with herself. She felt Solar shuffle beside her and tried her hardest not to look.

“You.” She cocked her gun and aimed it straight at her forehead. “ _ You _ are gonna show me.”

Bora didn't have the time to react that someone interrupted. 

“Wait,” Solar cut, attracting all the attention in the room to herself. “I know… I know the way out.”  

“Fine.” The woman charged the gun and a  _ click _ was heard in the deafening silence. “Hands in the air, walk slowly to me.”

“Hey,” Solar raised her hands, still obeying and advancing slowly. “I'm on your side, okay? I’ll help you get away. We’re both leaving.”

She walked to the woman letting out a string of reassuring phrases until she was two feet before her. 

The woman tensed when Solar neared. She jerked her gun in the direction of the door. 

“Go first,” she commended and pressed the knife threateningly on the guy’s neck. 

Solar was so fast, Bora wasn't sure she could trust her own two eyes. 

Her foot kicked once, gracefully, and the gun was sent flying far from the woman’s hand.

All eyes followed the trajectory of the weapon and when it landed back in Solar’s hand, she had  already managed to free the guy held hostage, pressing the woman’s own knife against her throat.

She caught the pistol, swung it around her fingers and pushed it against the woman's temple. Just like that, she dominated her opponent. She forced her to face the rows of recruits and found Bora’s eyes. 

When she did, she struck the woman on the back of her skull in one swift motion.

Her eyes rolled to the back of her head. She fell slowly, first on her knees, then the rest of her body followed and she laid on the floor like a rag doll. 

Not a strand of hair on Solar’s head was out of place when she threw the weapons to the side and said, “Take her to isolation.”

Recruits in the first row immediately followed her orders. 

She tossed her hair over her shoulder and still looking in Bora’s direction, she said with a sly smile. “You’re welcome.”

Bora hated herself for staying agape. 

“What was that?” she mumbled to Nairin as the noise increased again and the recruits started talking excitedly about what they’d just witnessed.

“From times to times,” Nairin said bleakly, “some recruits are more difficult than others. They try to escape when we first bring them in. They just need a little more convincing than the others.”

“What are they going to do to her?” She watched them carry the body of the girl out the door. 

“Nothing too bad,” she replied evasively. “Believe me,” she added at Bora’s judgemental look. “It doesn't take a genius to realize that whatever condition they're leaving behind isn't worth what we have to offer. They resist at first, but if they know what's good for them they don't do it for long. Drug addicts, gang members, victims of abuse. We  _ help _ them.”

“What if they refuse your help?”

“They never do.”

“What about her?” she jerked her chin towards Solar who was monitoring everything while talking with the guy who'd been held at knife point. “What's her story?”

“From what I gathered she was the daughter of a rich tycoon. Her father died leaving deadly enemies behind. Division protects her, she works for Division. I'd feel some empathy if she wasn't acting like a rich brat used to getting all she wants.” She glared at Solar. “She's even desperate enough to think she can get in Jax’s pants.” Nairin snickered. “Everybody knows he doesn't fuck with recruits anymore.”

That sentence wouldn’t have caught Bora’s attention were it not for the choice of words.

“ _ Anymore _ ,” she repeated after Nairin. “What stopped him?”

“He dated one. She died three years ago during a mission.” She said it in a detached manner that set Bora off. 

Bora felt weird as she probed further, “What happened?”

“It's not my story to tell. If you want the full story,” she shrugged and got back to cutting onions. “just ask Jax.”

Bora nodded, knowing full well she was in no position to do so.

Nairin was deep in her thoughts and after long silent minutes between them she spoke again. 

“That's the thing with Division,” she said like she was speaking to herself, “you get attached to people that could be ripped away from you, any day, for any reason.”

 

* * *

 

Jackson stayed in the garage late in the night working on his latest acquisition, a 1968 red and white Ford Mustang. He was in the middle of revamping the collector car he’d bought at an auction a few weeks ago. He barely had the time to deliver it to the garage that he’d been sent out on a mission to retrieve Lee Hyun Suk’s hard drive in Seoul.

He’d completed his mission beyond expectations. He’d even brought the man’s daughter with him.

He snorted quietly. Why did troublemakers gravitate to him?

_ Agh, Princess, agh. _

The amount of trouble she’d managed to stir in a short period of time was mind-boggling. 

He was head buried underneath the hood of the car, reminiscing their earlier clash, when he heard a door creak open and heels clicking on the floor.

“There you are.”

Jackson closed his eyes. He wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone. 

“Solar,” he acknowledged her presence but didn’t turn to welcome her.

“We got another recruit situation today,” she felt like informing him.

“Hm.” He hoped she would take the hint that he wasn’t in the mood to talk.

“Kang Seulgi,” she continued. If she took the hint, she absolutely ignored it. “We put her in isolation. You should’ve seen Lee’s daughter’s face.”

His face shifted at the mention of her name but he didn't entertain Solar further. He finally turned to her and picked a wrench among the spread of tools that lay on the table.

“Speaking of her,” she crossed her arms over her chest and followed his movements carefully. “I want to talk to you about the new girl.”

He took a nail from a toolbox and examined it under the lantern set on the hood, giving Solar a view of his back. He made sure to keep his tone as uninterested as possible when he replied. “What about her?”

“Why did you give her a room on Cloud Nine?”

Leave it to Solar to pick apart trivial matters. She was smart, yet sometimes so dense.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“She’s not one of us, she’s not even a recruit. She shouldn’t have access to the Operations Room. Same goes for her boyfriend. I'll move them to the dorms tomorrow.” 

“Fine, do whatever you want.” He took an already dirty rag and wiped his hands with it. “That’s none of my business.”

“Really now?” she said quietly. “She seemed to be a lot of your business during that Initiation. Were it not for you, she'd a have a knife lodged into her neck.”

Jackson tensed. He knew it had been coming just by the look she'd given him after the fight. 

“You broke the no-weapons rule.”

“Since when do you care about the rules?”

He turned around slowly and looked her dead in the eye, “What are you trying to say?”

Her inquisitive look turned into a glare.

“Nothing,” she shrugged. “I'll leave you to your brooding.”

And she left like she came, an incessant clicking noise following her.    
  



End file.
